BACKGROUND An effective health policy necessitates a reliable characterization of the burden of disease (BOD) by cause. The Global Burden of Disease Study (GBDS) aims to deliver this information. For sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in particular, the GBDS relies on extrapolations and expert guesses. Its results lack validation by locally measured epidemiological data. METHODS This study presents loc...

OBJECTIVES The burden of epilepsy, in terms of both morbidity and mortality, is likely to vary depending on the etiology (primary [genetic/unknown] vs. secondary [structural/metabolic]) and with the use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). We estimated the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and modeled the remission rates of active convulsive epilepsy (ACE) using epidemiologic data collected over...

OBJECTIVE To assess injury-related mortality, disability and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) in six European countries. METHODS Epidemiological data (hospital discharge registers, emergency department registers, mortality databases) were obtained for Austria, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom (England and Wales). For each country, the burden of injury was es...

BACKGROUND/AIM Reliable and comparable analysis of health risks is an important component of evidence-based and preventive programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of the most relevant avoidable risk factors on the burden of the selected conditions in Serbia. METHODS Attributable fractions were calculated from the survey information on the prevalence of a risk factor and the ...

BACKGROUND Rural South Africa (SA) is undergoing a rapid health transition characterized by increases in non-communicable diseases; stroke in particular. Knowledge of the relative contribution of modifiable risk factors on disease occurrence is needed for public health prevention efforts and community-oriented health promotion. Our aim was to estimate the burden of stroke in rural SA that is at...

INTRODUCTION The purpose of measuring the burden of disease involves aggregating morbidity and mortality components into a single indicator, the disability-adjusted life year (DALY), to measure how much and how people live and suffer the impact of a disease. OBJECTIVE To estimate the global burden of disease due to AIDS in a municipality of southern Brazil. METHODS An ecological study was c...

BACKGROUND Introducing comprehensive smoke-free policies to public places is expected to reduce health costs. This includes prevented health damages by avoiding environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure as well as indirect health benefits from reduced tobacco consumption. METHODS The aim of this study was to estimate direct health costs of ETS exposure in public places and indirect health be...

OBJECTIVES To estimate the burden of disease attributable to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in South Africa, to identify the factors contributing to this burden, and to review successes and failures in reducing this burden. DESIGN Years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD) were estimated using different approaches for HIV/ AIDS, other STIs and cervical cancer. Burd...

INTRODUCTION The Singapore Burden of Disease (SBoD) Study 2004 provides a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the size and distribution of health problems in Singapore. It is the first local study to use disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) to quantify the total disease burden. METHODS The SBoD study applied the methods developed for the original Global Burden of Disease study to data ...