What are essential medicines and who should pay for them, especially in lower-income countries? Those questions and others were studied by The Lancet’s Commission on Essential Medicines Policies and explored in a series of articles published recently in the London-based medical journal.
2016
December 13, 2016
Acting on data
December 5, 2016
Acting on data
While decision-makers, researchers, and clinicians around the globe regularly use Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimates to inform their work and set policy, educators are also finding value in incorporating this research and IHME resources into their curricula.
November 28, 2016
Acting on data
Over the past few years, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study has grown a network of expert collaborators with an array of experience, competencies, and disciplines, and it is this diversity of perspective that makes GBD the most comprehensive view of global health burden in the world. One collaborator, Dr. Jayaraman, discussed her unique vantage point as a clinician in October during the GBD 2015 launch event, and we had the opportunity to learn more about Dr. Jayaraman’s experiences after the event.
November 21, 2016
Acting on data
Adolescence is often overlooked in health policy and planning, despite the fact that it represents a crucial period of life for addressing risks and preventing health problems in later life. Guided by insights from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, the Government of India has prioritized the needs of adolescents in a comprehensive strategy to address the determinants of poor health for women, children, and young people.
November 17, 2016
Acting on data
For World Diabetes Day (WDD), IHME showcased a variety of diabetes-related resources that can be used by decision-makers. IHME’s WDD social media campaign demonstrated how IHME’s online data visualization tool GBD Compare can be used to compare trends across countries, ages, sexes, and time periods.
November 10, 2016
Acting on data
Public Health England (PHE) just wrapped up the fifth year of their “Stoptober” challenge, a campaign to get 7 million people in England to stop smoking. This campaign reflects one of the seven priorities outlined in PHE’s plan of action, “From evidence into action: opportunities to protect and improve the nation’s health,” which was crafted using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study.
November 4, 2016
Acting on data
Thomas J. Bollyky and Eric Goosby use IHME research to make the case for continued U.S. leadership and investment in global health.
October 28, 2016
Acting on data
To provide Namibia with actionable evidence to guide the country’s universal health coverage agenda, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), Namibia, recently published the report “Namibia: State of the Nation’s Health: Findings from the Global Burden of Disease.”
October 21, 2016
Acting on data
In New Zealand, the Ministry of Health is using Global Burden of Disease (GBD) data to guide the country’s health strategy for the next 10 years and beyond. An extensive new report, entitled Health Loss in New Zealand 1990-2013: A report from the New Zealand Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors, provides a big-picture look at New Zealand’s health landscape. By outlining the major causes of health loss in the country over the past two decades, it aims to guide policymakers, funders, researchers, and front-line providers in their efforts to ensure that all New Zealanders are “living well, staying well, and getting well.”
October 14, 2016
Acting on data
The world’s most comprehensive tool for measuring disease burden and guiding government health agendas just got better.
September 16, 2016
Acting on data
In Mexico, evidence from the Global Burden of Disease study plays a central role in guiding health policy. As Secretary of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, Dr. Julio Frenk was the first leader in the country to use Global Burden of Disease (GBD) findings to guide health policy. Burden of Disease research helped shape the package of health services provided to all Mexicans.
September 9, 2016
Acting on data
According to a new report from the World Bank and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), air pollution – which can lead to lung cancer, stroke, and heart disease – cost the global economy roughly $225 billion in 2013. Air pollution, per the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013, was the fourth-leading risk factor for premature death in 2013.
August 23, 2016
Acting on data
Britain’s recent vote to leave the European Union (EU) – popularly known as “Brexit” – marks a monumental shift in the EU’s history of alliance, and the uncertainty it has generated reaches far beyond the bounds of the EU.
August 11, 2016
Acting on data
In June of 1981, the CDC reported five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia among previously healthy young men in Los Angeles. Thirty-five years later, and millions of words, thousands of scientific papers, and countless celebrities’ speeches later, AIDS has evolved from an obscure disease to a movement crossing medical, social, political, and economic boundaries.
July 15, 2016
Acting on data
This week, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Nairobi, announcing that his country would help the Kenyan government build a high-tech cancer treatment center in the capital. At the same time, 65 health practitioners gathered in another part of the city to plan for an even bigger project: tackling all non-communicable diseases (NCDs). As a first step toward this goal, the International Center for Humanitarian Affairs (ICHA) at the Kenya Red Cross and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), in collaboration with the Kenya Ministry of Health, produced a report that examines health progress over the past 23 years, as well as the challenges the country faces as its population grows and Kenya’s health landscape shifts.
July 8, 2016
Acting on data
In the midst of a contentious Congressional battle over funding for Zika prevention and research, IHME is providing Congressional staff with objective information to guide decision-making.
June 29, 2016
Acting on data
The estimation of global health outcomes just became much more transparent.
May 26, 2016
Acting on data
Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remain the leading cause of death in the world. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 (GBD 2013), the number of CVD deaths has risen since 1990 – from 12.3 million in 1990 to 17.3 million in 2013, an increase of almost 41%.
May 24, 2016
Acting on data
The health and well-being of the planet’s largest generation of adolescents will shape both the future of the world’s health and the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to health, nutrition, education, gender equality, and food security. With the SDGs comes a renewed and expanded focus on adolescent health and well-being.
April 22, 2016
Acting on data
As the Zika virus advances, new science is emerging that can help decision-makers as they strive to stay ahead of this rapidly evolving situation. Thanks to IHME Professor Simon Hay and colleagues, policymakers in the US and the UK now have detailed information about where Zika could spread next.
April 20, 2016
Acting on data
After the 2014-2015 West African Ebola outbreak, Dr. David Pigott, IHME Assistant Professor, and Prof. Simon Hay, IHME Director of Geospatial Science, became interested in understanding areas at greatest risk of future Ebola virus disease outbreaks. They decided to apply geospatial analysis techniques, used to improve the spatial resolution at which we map diseases, to create an Ebola Mapping Tool that produces a geographical picture of the potential risk of an Ebola outbreak in Africa.
March 30, 2016
Acting on data
Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iran’s government has invested extensively in providing primary care to its people, even in the most remote corners of the country.
March 16, 2016
Acting on data
For the past few months, IHME has been collaborating with the prestigious JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association on a series of infographics, beginning with one on HIV mortality, incidence, and prevalence, and most recently mortality rates in children under 5 years of age. The IHME-JAMA infographics have proven highly successful; “When and Why People Die in the United States, 1990-2013,” published in January 2016, has already garnered more than 27,000 views.
February 24, 2016
Acting on data
A recent press briefing at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) reminded us that air pollution kills millions of people, especially in Asia.
January 8, 2016
Acting on data
With its recently unveiled 2016-2020 strategic plan, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is aiming to replicate this success for other diseases that cause the most early death and disability in the US and worldwide. One of the factors the NIH will consider when determining how to best direct public resources is burden of disease data, which allow decision-makers to directly compare the impact of diseases that kill, such as cancer, and conditions that disable, such as depression. The use of burden of disease data will harmonize decision-making across the agency’s nearly 30 institutes and centers. By working with its partners – including the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation – the NIH will collect and integrate high-quality burden of disease data into its priority-setting processes.