Strategic health planning, the cornerstone of initiatives to facilitate the attainment of health goals in populations around the world, requires an understanding of the comparative burden of diseases and injuries, their corresponding risk factors, and the likely effects of proposed interventions. Critical to an effective assessment of risks and outcomes is a framework to integrate, validate, analyze, compare and disseminate available information to policy makers.

The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) framework, the principal instrument to do so, has been widely adopted since its publication in 1990 as the preferred method for health accounting and as the standard to guide the setting of health research priorities. Features of this framework include the development of methods for assessing the reliability of data and estimating missing data for ensuring epidemiological consistency among the various estimates available for a disease, and the use of a common metric to summarize the disease burden from diagnostic categories of the International Classification of Diseases and the major risk factors that cause those health outcomes.

Contents

• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface
• Editors
• Advisory Committee to the Editors
• Contributors
• Disease Control Priorities Project Partners
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• Introduction
  • Chapter 1. Measuring the Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors, 1990–2001
    Alan D. Lopez, Colin D. Mathers, Majid Ezzati, Dean T. Jamison, and Christopher J. L. Murray.
    • History of Burden of Disease Studies
    • Applications of Burden of Disease Analysis
    • Improving the Comparative Quantification of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors: The 2001 GBD Study
    • Major Findings of the 2001 GBD Study
    • Conclusions
    • References
• Part I. Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors
  • Chapter 2. Demographic and Epidemiological Characteristics of Major Regions, 1990–2001
    Alan D. Lopez, Stephen Begg, and Ed Bos.
    • Regional Demographic Characteristics
    • Changes in Mortality, 1990–2001
    • Trends in Causes of Child Death, 1990–2001
    • Discussion
    • Conclusions
    • Annex 2A. Key Demographic Indicators, by Country/Territory, 1990 and 2001
    • Acknowledgments
    • References
  • Chapter 3. The Burden of Disease and Mortality by Condition: Data, Methods, and Results for 2001
    Colin D. Mathers, Alan D. Lopez, and Christopher J. L. Murray.
    • Quantifying the Global Burden of Disease
    • Estimating Deaths by Cause: Methods and Data
    • Global and Regional Mortality in 2001
    • Estimating Incidence, Prevalence, and YLD: Methods and Data
    • Burden of Disability and Poor Health in 2001
    • Global Burden of Disease in 2001
    • Discussion and Conclusions
    • ANNEX 3A: Definitions, Mortality Data Sources, and Disability Weights
    • ANNEX 3B: Deaths by Cause, Sex, Age, and Region, 2001
    • ANNEX 3C: DALYs(3,0) by Cause, Sex, Age, and Region, 2001
    • Acknowledgments
    • References
  • Chapter 4. Comparative Quantification of Mortality and Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Risk Factors
    Majid Ezzati, Stephen Vander Hoorn, Alan D. Lopez, Goodarz Danaei, Anthony Rodgers, Colin D. Mathers, and Christopher J. L. Murray.
    • Burden of Disease Attributable to Risk Factors
    • Risk Factor Selection
    • Burden of Disease Attributable to Individual Risk Factors
    • Joint Effects of Multiple Risk Factors
    • Burden of Disease Attributable to Multiple Risk Factors
    • Directions for Future Research
    • Discussion
    • ANNEX 4A: Population Attributable Fractions, Attributable Deaths, Years of Life Lost Because of Premature Mortality (YLL), and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) by Risk Factor, Disease Outcome, Age, Sex, and Region
    • References
• Part II. Sensitivity Analyses
  • Chapter 5. Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analyses for Burden of Disease and Risk Factor Estimates
    Colin D. Mathers, Joshua A. Salomon, Majid Ezzati, Stephen Begg, Stephen Vander Hoorn, and Alan D. Lopez.
    • Discounting and Age Weighting in the DALY Measure
    • Sensitivity of Burden of Disease and Injury Results to Variations in Key Parameter Values
    • Sensitivity of Risk Factor Estimates to Variations in Key Parameter Values
    • Uncertainty Analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Estimates
    • Uncertainty Estimates for All-Cause Mortality and Life Expectancies
    • Uncertainty Estimates for Regional Mortality by Cause
    • Uncertainty in Disability Weights
    • Uncertainty Arising from Epidemiological Estimates
    • Uncertainty in the Disease Burden Attributable to Risk Factors
    • Discussion
    • Conclusions
    • Acknowledgments
    • References
  • Chapter 6. Incorporating Deaths Near the Time of Birth into Estimates of the Global Burden of Disease
    Dean T. Jamison, Sonbol A. Shahid-Salles, Julian Jamison, Joy E. Lawn, and Jelka Zupan.
    • Stillbirths and Neonatal Mortality in the Context of the Global Burden of Disease
    • The Burden of Disease Resulting from Events Near the Time of Birth
    • Conclusions
    • Annex 6a: Flexible Functional Forms for the Acquisition of Life Potential
    • Annex B: Supplementary Tables
    • Annex C: Causes of Neonatal Mortality: Comparison of Numbers from the Global Burden of Disease with Those from the Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group
    • Acknowledgments
    • References
• Glossary

This volume was funded in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is a product of the staff of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the executive directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent, the World Health Organization, or the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health.

The World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health do not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denominations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgement on the part of The World Bank, the World Health Organization, or the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.