Burden of non-communicable disease studies in Europe: a systematic review of data sources and methodological choices

Abstract

Background Assessment of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) resulting from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) requires specific calculation methods and input data. The aims of this study were to: (i) identify existing NCD burden of disease (BoD) activities in Europe; (ii) collate information on data sources for mortality and morbidity; and (iii) provide an overview of NCD-specific methods for calculating NCD DALYs. Methods NCD BoD studies were systematically searched in international electronic literature databases and in grey literature. We included all BoD studies that used the DALY metric to quantify the health impact of one or more NCDs in countries belonging to the European Region. Results A total of 163 BoD studies were retained: 96 (59%) were single-country or sub-national studies and 67 (41%) considered more than one country. Of the single-country studies, 29 (30%) consisted of secondary analyses using existing Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results. Mortality data were mainly derived (49%) from vital statistics. Morbidity data were frequently (40%) drawn from routine administrative and survey datasets, including disease registries and hospital discharge databases. The majority (60%) of national BoD studies reported mortality corrections. Multimorbidity adjustments were performed in 18% of national BoD studies. Conclusion The number of national NCD BoD assessments across Europe increased over time, driven by an increase in BoD studies that consisted of secondary data analysis of GBD study findings. Ambiguity in reporting of the use of NCD-specific BoD methods underline the need for reporting guidelines of BoD studies to enhance transparency of NCD BoD estimates across Europe.

Burden of infectious disease studies in Europe and the United Kingdom: a review of methodological design choices

“…Methodological design choices of burden of infectious disease studies are more consistent compared to those that have been used in non-communicable and injury burden of disease studies [29,30]. An explanation for this finding may be that most of the studies that were included in our review were from the same country and mostly the same research teams.…”

“…These studies have varied in terms of scope and methodologies applied. Previous systematic reviews of burden of disease studies, focused on non-communicable diseases and injuries, have revealed considerable variations in methodological approaches used in independent disease burden studies [27][28][29][30][31]. Insight into these variations in methods is important since it affects the calculation, interpretation, and comparability.…”

Methodological choices in brucellosis burden of disease assessments: A systematic review

“…Finally, there is no standardized way of evaluating DALYs calculations or disease models currently in place. Thus for this review, we had to come up with an approach ourselves, which was inspired by previous literature along with the work done by the European Burden of Disease Network [51].…”

Methodological choices in brucellosis burden of disease assessments: A systematic review

“…The systematic review of Haagsma et al [20] was used as a blueprint when creating the data extraction grid; in particular, the same categories proposed by Haagsma et al [20] were used when collecting incidence and prevalence data. Additionally, the data extraction sheet from Charalampous et al [25] was adopted in order to better fit the aim of this review and the disease. The data extraction was piloted with the FERG study [14], and no revision of the extraction table was necessary for this review.…”

“…Finally, there is no standardized way of evaluating DALYs calculations or disease models currently in place. Thus for this review, we had to come up with an approach ourselves, which was inspired by previous literature along with the work done by the European Burden of Disease Network [25].…”