The Lancet publishes the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), the largest ever systematic effort to describe the global distribution and causes of a wide array of major diseases, injuries, and health risk factors.

The results show that infectious diseases, maternal and child illness, and malnutrition now cause fewer deaths and less illness than they did twenty years ago. 

As a result, fewer children are dying every year, but more young- and middle-aged adults are dying and suffering from disease and injury, as non-communicable diseases, such as cancer and heart disease, become the dominant causes of death and disability worldwide. 

Since 1970, men and women worldwide have gained slightly more than ten years of life expectancy overall, but they spend more years living with injury and illness.

The study, which has taken more than five years, involving 486 authors in 50 different countries, is the first systematic and comprehensive assessment of global data on disease, injuries, and risk, since the first global burden of disease study was commissioned by the World Bank in 1990. 

The scope of the study has been greatly expanded, with more diseases, injuries, and risk factors evaluated than ever before, and for the first time, data have been generated for different points in time, allowing researchers to track how the world’s health has changed in the last two decades.  In another first for GBD 2010, where estimates from the study aren’t certain, the researchers have provided the range of uncertainty around the figures.

The work was led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, with key collaborating institutions including the University of Queensland, the Harvard School of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the University of Tokyo, Imperial College London, and the World Health Organization. 

According to Dr Chris Murray, Director of the IHME, “For decision-makers, health-sector leaders, researchers, and informed citizens, the global burden of disease approach provides an opportunity to see the big picture, to compare diseases, injuries, and risk factors, and to understand in a given place, time, and age-sex group, what are the most important contributors to health loss.”

GBD 2010 consists of seven Articles, each containing a wealth of data on different aspects of the study (including data for different countries and world regions, men and women, and different age-groups).  Eight Comments accompanying the study provide commentary from study authors, and other experts. 

The study is described by Lancet Editor-in-Chief Dr Richard Horton as “a critical contribution to our understanding of present and future health priorities for countries and the global community.”

Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), writes in a Comment accompanying the study that WHO “warmly welcomes GBD 2010”, and in another Comment, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, adds that, “Like its predecessors, the new, methodologically updated GBD 2010 marks a milestone in global health knowledge and our capacity for evidence-based action. It will once again set the terms of health policy, planning, and funding discussions for years to come.”

GBD 2010 is being published in a special issue of The Lancet, the first time that the journal has dedicated an entire issue to a single study.

Source: The Lancet