Disease burden
Disease burden is the impact of a health problem as measured by financial cost, mortality, morbidity, or other indicators.
The study based on data from 188 countries, considered to be the largest and most detailed analysis to quantify levels, patterns, and trends in ill health and disability, concluded that "the proportion of disability-adjusted life years due to YLDs increased globally from 21.1% in 1990 to 31.2% in 2013.
[4][6][7] Similarly, the work-related burden of disease is defined as the number of deaths and DALYs that can be attributed to occupational risk factors to human health.
"[9] The World Health Organization (WHO) has provided a set of detailed guidelines for measuring disease burden at the local or national level.
[4] In 2004, the health issue leading to the highest YLD for both men and women was unipolar depression;[10] in 2010, it was lower back pain.
[6] To measure the environmental health impact, environment was defined as "all the physical, chemical and biological factors external to a person, and all the related behaviours".
[20] This approach requires knowledge of the outcomes associated with the relevant risk factor, exposure levels and distribution in the study population, and dose-response relationships of the pollutants.
[3][4] For example, the disease burden of outdoor air pollution for Santiago, Chile, was calculated by measuring the concentration of atmospheric particulate matter (PM10), estimating the susceptible population, and combining these data with relevant dose-response relationships.
[6] In the Netherlands, air pollution is associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and exposure to certain forms of radiation can lead to the development of cancer.
Quantification of the health impact of the environment was done by calculating DALYs for air pollution, noise, radon, UV, and indoor dampness for the period 1980 to 2020.
In the Netherlands, 2–5% of the total disease burden in 2000 could be attributed to the effects of (short-term) exposure to air pollution, noise, radon, natural UV radiation, and dampness in houses.
[25] Results showed a total of 10,000–25,000 deaths, with 78,000–194,000 hospitalizations; 600,000–1.5 million days spent in hospital; 1.1–1.8 million restricted activity days for individuals with asthma; 8000–24,000 new cases of cancer; 500–2,500 babies with low birth weights; and C$3.6–9.1 billion in costs each year due to respiratory disease, cardiovascular illness, cancer, and congenital conditions associated with adverse environmental exposures.
In their analysis they focus on the following four health outcomes: diarrhea, acute respiratory infections, malnutrition, and soil-transmitted Helminthiasis (STHs).
The latter does not lead to such high death numbers (in comparison) but is fully connected to unsafe WASH; its "population-attributable fraction" is estimated to be 100%.
For example, open defecation – which is the most extreme form of "lack of sanitation" – is a major factor in causing various diseases, most notably diarrhea and intestinal worm infections.
For example, maternal death (one of the top three killers in most poor countries) and pediatric respiratory and intestinal infections maintain a high disease burden, and safe pregnancy and the prevention of coughs in infants do not receive adequate funding.
