Question

Global Health

Write a short essay (300 – 500 words) APA Style to answer the following question: What does global burden of a disease mean? Explain how global health researchers tend to measure how significant a health issue is (that is, its global burden and list some methods used for estimating disease burden in the population.

Answer 1

Global health risks is a comprehensive assessment of leading risks to global health. It provides detailed global and regional estimates of premature mortality, disability and loss of health attributable to 24 global risk factors … World Health organization (WHO). (2009) Global Health Risks - Mortality and burden of disease attributable to selected major risks ......... Measuring global health is frequently defined in terms of measurement of the Global Disease Burden [GBD] which is defined as the impact of a health problem as measure by mortality, morbidity and financial cost.
Various diseases put a different amount of disease-burden on a population and has become the most common method in order to compare across nations. When comparing GBD data from different countries, there is a marked difference between nations which are developed to a greater or lesser degree.

Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Project

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is the single largest and most detailed scientific effort ever conducted to quantify levels and trends in health. The study reported the health effects of more than 100 diseases and injuries in 8 regions of the world in the year 1990. Led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, it is truly a global effort, with over 1,000 researchers from more than 100 countries, including 26 low- and middle-income countries, participating in the most recent update. The GBD provides a tool to quantify health loss from hundreds of diseases, injuries, and risk factors, so that health systems can be improved and disparities can be eliminated.

It produced estimates of mortality and morbidity by age, sex and region.

The ongoing Global Burden of Disease Study[1] is described as "The most comprehensive worldwide observational epidemiological study to date." It describes mortality and morbidity from disease and injury. It quantifies global, regional and national life expectancy, all-cause mortality and cause specific mortality for 249 causes of death, 1980-2015. It is led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (HME), University of Washington, USA, and researchers are based throughout the world: there are more than 1,000 researchers from more than 100 countries, which includes 26 low and middle-income countries.

As well as examining 249 causes of death, it reviews 315 disease and injuries and 79 risk factors. The data is taken from 195 countries and territories between 1990 and 2015.