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The Global Burden of Disease: Generating Evidence, Guiding Policy provides an overview of the reasons why the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) is an essential tool for evidence-based health policymaking and summarizes the main findings of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010 [3] (GBD 2010). GBD 2010 is the most comprehensive study of its kind, producing comparative metrics for 291 different causes of premature death and disability across 187 countries, 20 age groups, and both sexes for three time periods: 1990, 2005, and 2010. The study also estimated 67 potentially preventable causes of ill health, or risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure, and household air pollution.

At the global level, GBD 2010 found that people’s health is changing rapidly. Many countries have made remarkable progress in preventing child deaths and extending the lives of their citizens. As a result, disease burden is increasingly defined by disability instead of premature mortality. Unlike most areas of the world, however, the Millennium Development Goals continue to dominate in sub-Saharan Africa.