In the Middle East and North Africa, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are behind the massive amount of premature deaths and disability, a new study has revealed.
People in Latin America and the Caribbean are living longer on the whole, yet they face increasing threats from chronic diseases.
Mortality has declined in many South Asian countries, yet the number of deaths by non-communicable diseases and self-harm has skyrocketed since 1990.
These are some of the findings released by the World Bank Group and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in six regional reports as part of The Global Burden of Disease: Generating Evidence, Guiding Policy.
The reports are based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010 (GBD 2010), a collaborative effort of researchers from 50 countries around the world led by IHME at the University of Washington in the United States and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The reports explore changes in the leading causes of premature mortality and disability in different parts of the world and compare the performance of countries in a range of health outcomes. Individually, they document how each region is working to reduce health loss from most communicable, newborn, nutritional, and maternal conditions and what new challenges lie ahead.
Timothy Evans, Director of Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank Group, said that the rapid shifts in disease burden place poor people in low- and middle-income countries at high risk of not having access to appropriate services and incurring payments for health care that push them deeper into poverty.
He said that the data in these new reports are critical inputs to the efforts of policymakers in countries towards universal health coverage that aim to improve the health of their people, communities, and economies.
