Insights from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2019 provides a rules-based synthesis of the available evidence on levels and trends in health outcomes, a diverse set of risk factors, and health system responses. Five key insights that are important for health, social, and economic development strategies have been distilled. The study concluded that success in reducing the disease burden from causes of communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases by global collective action to fund key programs should be celebrated. Catch-up social and economic development is fueling more rapid health progress in the lower Socio-demographic Index (SDI, which combines information on gross domestic product per capita, average years of schooling among individuals aged older than 25 years, and the total fertility rate among females under the age of 25 years) quintiles. But there is reason to believe that, although the past 70 years have largely been a story of sustained improvements in health, rising exposure to crucial risks, such as high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, and ambient particulate matter pollution, as well as stagnant exposure to many other behavioral risks, including diet quality and physical activity, might attenuate progress. Most alarmingly, the mortality decreases in cardiovascular diseases of the past half a century have slowed substantially, or even reversed, in some nations with high SDI. New challenges, such as rising temperature and the associated increases in poverty, need to be urgently addressed. Low fertility in many nations is likely to emerge as a profound social and economic challenge. Tracking progress across this myriad of global health challenges, and with health development goals more broadly, reinforces the policy value of global comparative assessments in the health sector, such as the ongoing GBD. Source: https://www.thelancet.com/