Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Christopher J.L. Murray, Theo Vos, Rafael Lozano, Mohsen Naghavi, Abraham D. Flaxman, Catherine Michaud, Majid Ezzati, Kenji Shibuya, Joshua A. Salomon, Safa Abdalla, Victor Aboyans, Jerry Abraham, Ilana Ackerman, Rakesh Aggarwal, Stephanie Y. Ahn, Mohammed K. Ali, Mohammad A. AlMazroa, Miriam Alvarado, H. Ross Anderson, Laurie M. AndersonKathryn G. Andrews, Charles Atkinson, Larry M. Baddour, Adil N. Bahalim, Suzanne Barker-Collo, Lope H. Barrero, David H. Bartels, Maria Gloria Basáñez, Amanda Baxter, Michelle L. Bell, Emelia J. Benjamin, Derrick Bennett, Eduardo Bernabé, Kavi Bhalla, Bishal Bhandari, Boris Bikbov, Aref Bin Abdulhak, Gretchen Birbeck, James A. Black, Hannah Blencowe, Jed D. Blore, Fiona Blyth, Ian Bolliger, Audrey Bonaventure, Soufiane Boufous, Rupert Bourne, Michel Boussinesq, Tasanee Braithwaite, Carol Brayne, Lisa Bridgett, Simon Brooker, Peter Brooks, Traolach S. Brugha, Claire Bryan-Hancock, Chiara Bucello, Rachelle Buchbinder, Geoffrey Buckle, Christine M. Budke, Michael Burch, Peter Burney, Roy Burstein, Bianca Calabria, Benjamin Campbell, Charles E. Canter, Hélène Carabin, Jonathan Carapetis, Loreto Carmona, Claudia Cella, Fiona Charlson, Honglei Chen, Andrew Tai Ann Cheng, David Chou, Sumeet S. Chugh, Luc E. Coffeng, Steven D. Colan, Samantha Colquhoun, K. Ellicott Colson, John Condon, Myles D. Connor, Leslie T. Cooper, Matthew Corriere, Monica Cortinovis, Karen Courville De Vaccaro, William Couser, Benjamin C. Cowie, Michael H. Criqui, Marita Cross, Kaustubh C. Dabhadkar, Manu Dahiya, Nabila Dahodwala, James Damsere-Derry, Goodarz Danaei, Adrian Davis, Diego De Leo, Louisa Degenhardt, Robert Dellavalle, Allyne Delossantos, Julie Denenberg, Sarah Derrett, Don C. Des Jarlais, Samath D. Dharmaratne, Mukesh Dherani, Cesar Diaz-Torne, Helen Dolk, E. Ray Dorsey, Tim Driscoll, Herbert Duber, Beth Ebel, Karen Edmond, Alexis Elbaz, Suad Eltahir Ali, Holly Erskine, Patricia J. Erwin, Patricia Espindola, Stalin E. Ewoigbokhan, Farshad Farzadfar, Valery Feigin, David T. Felson, Alize Ferrari, Cleusa P. Ferri, Eric M. Fèvre, Mariel M. Finucane, Seth Flaxman, Louise Flood, Kyle Foreman, Mohammad H. Forouzanfar, Francis Gerry R. Fowkes, Marlene Fransen, Michael K. Freeman, Belinda J. Gabbe, Sherine E. Gabriel, Emmanuela Gakidou, Hammad A. Ganatra, Bianca Garcia, Flavio Gaspari, Richard F. Gillum, Gerhard Gmel, Diego Gonzalez-Medina, Richard Gosselin, Rebecca Grainger, Bridget Grant, Justina Groeger, Francis Guillemin, David Gunnell, Ramyani Gupta, Juanita Haagsma, Holly Hagan, Yara A. Halasa, Wayne Hall, Diana Haring, Josep Maria Haro, James E. Harrison, Rasmus Havmoeller, Roderick J. Hay, Hideki Higashi, Catherine Hill, Bruno Hoen, Howard Hoffman, Peter J. Hotez, Damian Hoy, John J. Huang, Sydney E. Ibeanusi, Kathryn H. Jacobsen, Spencer L. James, Deborah Jarvis, Rashmi Jasrasaria, Sudha Jayaraman, Nicole Johns, Jost B. Jonas, Ganesan Karthikeyan, Nicholas Kassebaum, Norito Kawakami, Andre Keren, Jon Paul Khoo, Charles H. King, Lisa Marie Knowlton, Olive Kobusingye, Adofo Koranteng, Rita Krishnamurthi, Francine Laden, Ratilal Lalloo, Laura L. Laslett, Tim Lathlean, Janet L. Leasher, Yong Yi Lee, James Leigh, Daphna Levinson, Stephen S. Lim, Elizabeth Limb, John Kent Lin, Michael Lipnick, Steven E. Lipshultz, Wei Liu, Maria Loane, Summer Lockett Ohno, Ronan Lyons, Jacqueline Mabweijano, Michael F. MacIntyre, Reza Malekzadeh, Leslie Mallinger, Sivabalan Manivannan, Wagner Marcenes, Lyn March, David J. Margolis, Guy B. Marks, Robin Marks, Akira Matsumori, Richard Matzopoulos, Bongani M. Mayosi, John H. McAnulty, Mary M. McDermott, Neil McGill, John McGrath, Maria Elena Medina-Mora, Michele Meltzer, Ziad A. Memish, George A. Mensah, Tony R. Merriman, Ana Claire Meyer, Valeria Miglioli, Matthew Miller, Ted R. Miller, Philip B. Mitchell, Charles Mock, Ana Olga Mocumbi, Terrie E. Moffitt, Ali A. Mokdad, Lorenzo Monasta, Marcella Montico, Maziar Moradi-Lakeh, Andrew Moran, Lidia Morawska, Rintaro Mori, Michele E. Murdoch, Michael K. Mwaniki, Kovin Naidoo, M. Nathan Nair, Luigi Naldi, K. M.Venkat Narayan, Paul K. Nelson, Robert G. Nelson, Michael C. Nevitt, Charles R. Newton, Sandra Nolte, Paul Norman, Rosana Norman, Martin O'Donnell, Simon O'Hanlon, Casey Olives, Saad B. Omer, Katrina Ortblad, Richard Osborne, Doruk Ozgediz, Andrew Page, Bishnu Pahari, Jeyaraj Durai Pandian, Andrea Panozo Rivero, Scott B. Patten, Neil Pearce, Rogelio Perez Padilla, Fernando Perez-Ruiz, Norberto Perico, Konrad Pesudovs, David Phillips, Michael R. Phillips, Kelsey Pierce, Sébastien Pion, Guilherme V. Polanczyk, Suzanne Polinder, C. Arden Pope, Svetlana Popova, Esteban Porrini, Farshad Pourmalek, Martin Prince, Rachel L. Pullan, Kapa D. Ramaiah, Dharani Ranganathan, Homie Razavi, Mathilda Regan, Jürgen T. Rehm, David B. Rein, Guiseppe Remuzzi, Kathryn Richardson, Frederick P. Rivara, Thomas Roberts, Carolyn Robinson, Felipe Rodriguez De Leòn, Luca Ronfani, Robin Room, Lisa C. Rosenfeld, Lesley Rushton, Ralph L. Sacco, Sukanta Saha, Uchechukwu Sampson, Lidia Sanchez-Riera, Ella Sanman, David C. Schwebel, James Graham Scott, Maria Segui-Gomez, Saeid Shahraz, Donald S. Shepard, Hwashin Shin, Rupak Shivakoti, Donald Silberberg, David Singh, Gitanjali M. Singh, Jasvinder A. Singh, Jessica Singleton, David A. Sleet, Karen Sliwa, Emma Smith, Jennifer L. Smith, Nicolas J.C. Stapelberg, Andrew Steer, Timothy Steiner, Wilma A. Stolk, Lars Jacob Stovner, Christopher Sudfeld, Sana Syed, Giorgio Tamburlini, Mohammad Tavakkoli, Hugh R. Taylor, Jennifer A. Taylor, William J. Taylor, Bernadette Thomas, W. Murray Thomson, George D. Thurston, Imad M. Tleyjeh, Marcello Tonelli, Jeffrey A. Towbin, Thomas Truelsen, Miltiadis K. Tsilimbaris, Clotilde Ubeda, Eduardo A. Undurraga, Marieke J. Van Der Werf, Jim van Os, Monica S. Vavilala, N. Venketasubramanian, Mengru Wang, Wenzhi Wang, Kerrianne Watt, David J. Weatherall, Martin A. Weinstock, Robert Weintraub, Marc G. Weisskopf, Myrna M. Weissman, Richard A. White, Harvey Whiteford, Natasha Wiebe, Steven T. Wiersma, James D. Wilkinson, Hywel C. Williams, Sean R.M. Williams, Emma Witt, Frederick Wolfe, Anthony D. Woolf, Sarah Wulf, Pon Hsiu Yeh, Anita K.M. Zaidi, Zhi Jie Zheng, David Zonies, Alan D. Lopez

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6810 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Measuring disease and injury burden in populations requires a composite metric that captures both premature mortality and the prevalence and severity of ill-health. The 1990 Global Burden of Disease study proposed disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) to measure disease burden. No comprehensive update of disease burden worldwide incorporating a systematic reassessment of disease and injury-specific epidemiology has been done since the 1990 study. We aimed to calculate disease burden worldwide and for 21 regions for 1990, 2005, and 2010 with methods to enable meaningful comparisons over time. Methods: We calculated DALYs as the sum of years of life lost (YLLs) and years lived with disability (YLDs). DALYs were calculated for 291 causes, 20 age groups, both sexes, and for 187 countries, and aggregated to regional and global estimates of disease burden for three points in time with strictly comparable definitions and methods. YLLs were calculated from age-sex-country-time-specific estimates of mortality by cause, with death by standardised lost life expectancy at each age. YLDs were calculated as prevalence of 1160 disabling sequelae, by age, sex, and cause, and weighted by new disability weights for each health state. Neither YLLs nor YLDs were age-weighted or discounted. Uncertainty around cause-specific DALYs was calculated incorporating uncertainty in levels of all-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality, prevalence, and disability weights. Findings: Global DALYs remained stable from 1990 (2·503 billion) to 2010 (2·490 billion). Crude DALYs per 1000 decreased by 23% (472 per 1000 to 361 per 1000). An important shift has occurred in DALY composition with the contribution of deaths and disability among children (younger than 5 years of age) declining from 41% of global DALYs in 1990 to 25% in 2010. YLLs typically account for about half of disease burden in more developed regions (high-income Asia Pacific, western Europe, high-income North America, and Australasia), rising to over 80% of DALYs in sub-Saharan Africa. In 1990, 47% of DALYs worldwide were from communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders, 43% from non-communicable diseases, and 10% from injuries. By 2010, this had shifted to 35%, 54%, and 11%, respectively. Ischaemic heart disease was the leading cause of DALYs worldwide in 2010 (up from fourth rank in 1990, increasing by 29%), followed by lower respiratory infections (top rank in 1990; 44% decline in DALYs), stroke (fifth in 1990; 19% increase), diarrhoeal diseases (second in 1990; 51% decrease), and HIV/AIDS (33rd in 1990; 351% increase). Major depressive disorder increased from 15th to 11th rank (37% increase) and road injury from 12th to 10th rank (34% increase). Substantial heterogeneity exists in rankings of leading causes of disease burden among regions. Interpretation: Global disease burden has continued to shift away from communicable to non-communicable diseases and from premature death to years lived with disability. In sub-Saharan Africa, however, many communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional disorders remain the dominant causes of disease burden. The rising burden from mental and behavioural disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, and diabetes will impose new challenges on health systems. Regional heterogeneity highlights the importance of understanding local burden of disease and setting goals and targets for the post-2015 agenda taking such patterns into account. Because of improved definitions, methods, and data, these results for 1990 and 2010 supersede all previously published Global Burden of Disease results.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2197-2223
Number of pages27
JournalThe Lancet
Volume380
Issue number9859
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2012
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

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