10.F. Workshop: Projecting future burden of disease for informed public health decision making

Abstract

Abstract What are the most relevant diseases in a country? As the need for prioritising the use of available resources constantly increases, a timely, sound and comprehensive answer to this question is more than ever needed to inform public health decision making. The burden of disease metrics such as the Disability-adjusted Life Years (DALY) are important indicators for health information. The DALY provides a comprehensive indicator of the health gap in a country, addressing both premature mortality and health loss due to the occurrence of diseases. The European Burden of Disease Network (COST Action CA18218) acts as a technical platform for integrating and strengthening capacity in burden of disease assessment across Europe and beyond. The Action places a key focus on identifying and addressing data challenges, methodological choices and the need for translating research into policy. Where many Burden of disease (BoD) studies aim at producing the best estimates for the recent years, some countries are also making future projections of DALYs. By doing so, BoD studies become even more relevant for the policy making process since the do not cover only current best estimates, but also show what policy makers might be anticipating on. There are different methods to make future projections, varying from trend extrapolations and forecasts to developing scenarios as part of and advanced foresight approach. Future projections of the DALY estimates bring along additional data requirements. To be able to calculate future DALYs, projections of prevalence and causes of death, but also of population demographics, are needed. In addition, methodological choices have to be made to calculate future DALYs, for example regarding life tables. In this workshop, all these aspects will be addressed. Several countries (i.e. The Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland and Norway) will present their approaches to estimate future DALYs. The workshop will start with and interactive Mentimeter session to get a better view on how the audience is familiar with (future) Burden of Disease. Then, a brief presentation is given as introduction to the European Burden of Disease Network. This is followed by the four presentations of future DALYs. The workshop will be concluded by a discussion with the presenters on the lessons learned regarding their experience of doing future projections. Key messages • Burden of disease becomes even more relevant for policy makers when projections are included in the Burden of Disease study. • Data and methodological issues should be properly addressed to better inform policy makers.