A study conducted as part of an international collaboration was published in the May 2024 issue of The Lancet, with Dr. Péter Gaál, President of MEMT, among its co-authors.
This publication updates previous mortality projections and aligns with the 2021 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) estimates. For the first time, it provides comprehensive national-level metrics, including deaths, years of life lost, years lived with disability, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), life expectancy, and healthy life expectancy. Considering non-fatal diseases, the number of diseases and injuries included in the GBD projections has increased from 250 to 359.
The study also introduces several methodological advancements. The authors included average environmental temperature as a risk factor, allowing the prediction of mortality causes related to temperature changes and the examination of various scenarios concerning global surface temperature changes and their health impacts. They separated the interdependencies between risk factors through aggregated exposure models, enabling independent forecasting of risk trends and the combination of their effects without double-counting. Instead of a univariate model, an ensemble of models was applied for risk factor predictions.
In combination with the 2021 GBD estimates, the study presents the first estimates and projections of the fatal and non-fatal disease burden of COVID-19 for its first four years (2020–2023). This allows the interpretation of the COVID-19 burden within the broader context of total disease burden. The accuracy of these projections was evaluated in terms of cause-specific mortality and DALY burdens. Additionally, new goal-based scenarios were developed, going beyond merely applying past rates of change.
The article outlines three possible scenarios. The first alternative scenario forecasts the impact of eliminating risk factors such as unsafe water, sanitation, hygiene, and household air pollution by 2050. The second scenario examines the effects of eliminating disease burden linked to smoking, diet, and metabolic risk factors, such as high body mass index (BMI), high LDL cholesterol levels, high systolic blood pressure, and high blood glucose levels. The third scenario addresses risks associated with child malnutrition, including stunting, wasting, vitamin A deficiency, and inadequate breastfeeding, while also assessing the effects of increasing overall vaccination coverage to 100%.
The full article is available at: The Lancet – Full Text