Burden of disease related to Parkinson's disease in Spain in the year 2000

Abstract

We measured the burden caused by Parkinson's disease (PD) in Spain during the year 2000 and compared it against PD burden worldwide and in the European A subregion. Burden of disease (BoD) is an important factor in health policy. Disability-adjusted life years (DALY) as a measure of BoD is the result of adding years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD). The burden of PD (BPD) has not been studied in Spain. YLL were obtained from the Spanish death certificates and YLD from the estimated number of incident PD cases and the average PD duration. PD disability was calculated, using the Disability Weights for Diseases in the Netherlands. Prior PD DALY data for Europe and the world were obtained from the 2001 World Health Organization World Health Report. A discount rate of 3% and age-weighting modulation factor with K = 1 were used. In Spain, PD generated 67,582 DALY, comprising 6,351 (9.4%) YLL and 61,231 (90.6%) YLD. Most PD DALY (57.5%) occurred in the population 60 to 74 years of age. When PD DALY estimates were adjusted using the world population in 2000, Spain registered a PD DALY rate of 84 per 100,000 population, higher than both the world and European A subregion rates (24 and 35 per 100,000 population, respectively). PD burden in Spain in 2000 was high, with disability being the major contributing factor. Although BPD in Spain was greater than both world and European A subregion BPD, these differences should nevertheless be interpreted with caution.