AsianScientist (Oct. 17, 2016) – Human health is improving globally but progress has been far from universal, with the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors (GBD) 2015 study collaboration highlighting areas where improvements must be made. The study was published in a special issue of The Lancet.
This analysis focuses on the state of the world’s health to equip governments and donors with evidence to identify national health challenges and priorities for intervention. This massive effort brings together 1,870 independent experts in 127 countries and territories.
Each of the papers included in the study reveals wide differences across regions and countries in terms of their overall progress, but also wide variations between the progress observed in countries compared to what would be expected based on that country’s level of development.
In South Asia, for example, most countries did better than expected at reducing health loss from stroke (e.g. India, Pakistan) and lower respiratory infections (e.g. Bangladesh, Nepal). But India performed much worse than expected on tuberculosis; while Bangladesh did poorly on drowning.
All countries in South Asia did much worse than expected at reducing deaths in children under five years old, with India recording the largest number of under-five deaths of any country in 2015, at 1.3 million. However, Bangladesh has improved maternal survival much faster than expected; while India and Nepal fared poorly.
Interestingly, in 2015, the burden of diabetes, ischemic heart disease, and depression was much lower than expected in China; while levels of premature death and illness due to liver cirrhosis were three times higher than expected. The study also revealed that 30 out of 33 provinces and municipalities in China did better than expected at reducing under-five deaths in 2015.
The article can be found at: Wang et al. (2016) Global, Regional, and National Life Expectancy, All-cause Mortality, and Cause-specific Mortality for 249 Causes of Death, 1980–2015: A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study.
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Source: The Lancet; Photo: Pixabay.
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