Global Burden of Disease Study

Project Details

The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) is the most comprehensive worldwide descriptive epidemiological study to date. For over 20 years, the study has described mortality and morbidity from major diseases, injuries and risk factors to health at global, national and regional levels. The study has enabled a deep understanding of the changing health challenges facing people across the world by examining trends from 1990 to the present and making comparisons across populations.

Project summary

The GBD study is a large multi-institutional, multi-individual global collaborative initiative involving over 2500 individuals in over 133 countries. The aim of the study is to produce annual estimates of mortality, cause of death, incidence, prevalence and duration of illness/disability for 333 causes of global health relevance, and for over 2982 disabling sequelae of these conditions. The Study also estimates the comparative amount of disease and injury burden attributable to major risk factors such as tobacco, alcohol, high blood pressure, and diet. Annual estimates of these parameters are produced for 195 countries, by age and sex, and are widely used in national, regional and global health policy fora. The GBD group in the School also have a focus on promoting GBD research and collaboration in the Asia-Pacific region, and in the use of this information to more actively support policy debates.

More on the study can be found on the Global Burden of Disease page on The Lancet website.

Researchers

Laureate Professor Alan Lopez

Dr Tim Adair

Funding

University of Melbourne; Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Seattle.

Research Outcomes

View Laureate Professor Alan Lopez's publications

Research Publications

Publication of findings in leading international global public health journals (eg Lancet).