New Global Burden of Disease Study provides 'data-rich framework' for global health conversations

"The World Bank Group welcomes the publication of the new Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD)," published in the Lancet on Thursday, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim writes in a Lancet opinion piece, adding, "The GBD gives us a data-rich framework for comparing the importance of different diseases, injuries, and risk factors in causing premature death and disability within and across populations." He continues, "Specifically, the GBD has sharpened thinking on issues as diverse as the measurement of comorbidities; the role of culture in mediating the experience of disease; the meaning of disability; and the impact of poverty on health."

"GBD 2010 shows the remarkable health achievements of the past two decades, as well as the continuing, and emerging, challenges that require action," Kim notes, and provides examples. He writes, "To respond effectively to these challenges, national and local health systems must be strengthened, even transformed, and policy and funding decisions across the development spectrum must be reassessed -- from safety nets to urban planning." Kim concludes, "The remarkable body of evidence and analysis in GBD 2010 will help us foster the conversations that are needed across the whole of government, not just in ministries of health, to fulfill this responsibility" (12/15).