Dataset

BeBOD estimates of mortality, years of life lost, prevalence, years lived with disability, and disability-adjusted life years for 38 causes, 2013-2021

Belgian National Burden of Disease Study Estimates of the burden of disease Causes of death Our estimates are based on the official causes of death database compiled by Statbel. We first map the ICD-10 codes of the underlying causes of death to the Global Burden of Disease cause list, consisting of 131 unique causes of deaths. Next, we perform a probabilistic redistribution of ill-defined deaths to specific causes, to obtain a specific cause of death for each deceased person. Years of Life Lost In addition to counting the number of deaths, we also calculate Years of Life Lost (YLLs) as a measure of premature mortality. YLLs correspond to the life expectancy at the age of death, and therefore give a higher weight to deaths occurring at younger ages. We calculate YLLs using the Global Burden of Disease reference life table, which represents the theoretical maximum number of years that people can expect to live. Prevalence Our estimates are based on the GBD cause list for morbidity by IHME. We first select for each of the 38 causes, the most suitable local data source as described in the protocol. Next, we calculate the prevalence by year, region, age, and sex, to obtain a prevalence for each of the included diseases. Years Lived with Disability In addition to calculating the number of prevalent cases, we also calculate Years Lived with Disability (YLDs) as a measure of morbidity. YLDs are calculated as the product of the number of prevalent cases with the disability weight (DW), averaged over the different health states of the disease. The DWs reflect the relative reduction in quality of life, on a scale from 0 (perfect health) to 1 (death). We calculate YLDs using the Global Burden of Disease DWs. Disability-Adjusted Life Years Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) are a measure of overall disease burden, representing the healthy life years lost due to morbidity and mortality. DALYs are calculated as the sum of YLLs and YLDs for each of the considered diseases.

Overview

Keywords
Belgium BeBOD Burden of disease Mortality Disability-adjusted life years Morbidity Years Lived with Disability Years of Life Lost
Languages
ENG
Health Categories
Data from medical registries and mortality registries
Population Coverage
People living in Belgium
Purposes
  • What are the most important diseases in Belgium? Which risk factors contribute most to the overall disease burden? How is the burden of disease evolving over time, and how does it differ across the country? In a context of increasing budgetary constraints, a precise answer to these basic questions is more than ever necessary to inform policy-making. To address this need, Sciensano is conducting a national burden of disease study. In addition to generating internally consistent estimates of death rate (mortality) or how unhealthy we are (morbidity) by age, sex and region, the burden of disease will also be quantified using Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). The use of DALYs allows to estimate the years of life lost from premature death and years of life lived with disabilities. It therefore permits a truly comparative ranking of the burden of various diseases, injuries and risk factors.

Provenance
  • The dataset is based on (1) the official causes of death database compiled by Statbel, (2) the Global Burden of Disease reference life table (3) local data sources (claims data, GP data, hospital data) (4) Global Burden of Disease Disability Weights.
Landing Pages
Documentation

Temporal Information

Dataset Issued
Dataset Modified
Temporal Coverage
Start
End
Update Frequency
ANNUAL
Metadata Dates
Issued:
Modified:

Spatial Information

Geographic Coverage
  • BE
NUTS Codes
http://data.europa.eu/nuts/code/BE

Distributions & Resources

Zenodo files

https://zenodo.org/records/10173293

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Publication Info
License cc-zero1.0
Standards & Languages
Languages en
Conforms To
Distribution Profile
Direct Links
Interactive visualisation tools

https://burden.sciensano.be/shiny/daly/

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Publication Info
License cc-zero1.0
Standards & Languages
Languages en
Conforms To
Distribution Profile
Direct Links