Background

The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) is a multinational collaborative research study with> 10,000 collaborators around the world. GBD generates a time series of summary measures of health, including prevalence, cause-specific mortality (CSMR), years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) to provide a comprehensive view of health burden for a wide range of stakeholders including clinicians, public and private health systems, ministries of health, and other policymakers. These estimates are produced for 371 causes of death and 88 risk factors according to mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive hierarchies of health conditions and risks. The study is led by a principal investigator and governed by a study protocol, with oversight from a Scientific Council, and an Independent Advisory Committee. 1 GBD is performed in compliance with Guidelines for Accurate and Transparent Health Estimates Reporting (GATHER). 2 GBD uses de-identified data, and the waiver of informed consent was reviewed and approved by the University of Washington Institutional Review Board (study number 9060).