Burden of Diseases and Comparative Risk Assessment

This group’s priorities are to contribute data and conduct analysis to produce new sets of disease, injury and risk factor burden estimates for 1990 and 2005 using comparable methods for 21 regions which comprehensively cover the globe. To do this, the team will use outputs from the mortality, causes of death, and functional health status groups. This work is a key component of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study, presently being coordinated by a consortium including IHME, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Queensland, and the World Health Organization (WHO). More than 800 condition-specific experts from around the world are involved in the study.

Burden of disease regions

Major activity in Burden of Diseases and Comparative Risk Assessment:

Conduct systematic reviews of epidemiological evidence for diseases, injuries, and risk factors:

IHME, with Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Queensland, and the World Health Organization (WHO), convened hundreds of experts around the world as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study. The expert groups are undertaking systematic reviews of epidemiological evidence from both published and unpublished sources, including datasets and epidemiological articles. These reviews are intended to find information by disease and injury on incidence, prevalence, case-fatality, and mortality. The experts are noting sample size, population of interest, regional scope, definitions of conditions, measurement approach, and other critical details for each source found. Together, they are investigating approximately 240 conditions. In parallel, select expert groups are reviewing risk factors that lead to particular health outcomes, such as obesity, smoking, and diabetes. Currently, they are investigating approximately 40 such risk factors and establishing a precise definition of risk factor exposure and the variable used to measure exposure in the population. They will complete a systematic review of all published and available unpublished epidemiological studies, health surveys, health examination surveys, and other data sources that can be used to estimate risk factor exposure.

The expert group leaders convened in 2009 to compare and discuss the limitations of the existing data and to learn more about the methods that will be centrally applied across the data to produce comprehensive estimates. The results of this extensive study will be published in a series of peer-reviewed articles.

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