Key developments and results from the Australian Burden of Disease Study

Abstract

Abstract Australia has been at the forefront of national burden of disease study development for more than 20 years. Australia's 1996 national burden of disease study was one of the first in the world and updates have continued over the following two decades with the fifth study now underway. The studies adapt the global framework most recently implemented by the Global Burden of Disease Study to suit Australia's specific needs, producing estimates of fatal and non-fatal burden via the Disability-Adjusted-Life-Year metric, as well as attribution of the burden to many risk factors. Detailed Australian data are used from a range of sources (e.g. death registrations, population surveys, disease registers, hospitalisations and linked health data) with minimal reliance on modelling to fill data gaps. Comprehensive burden of disease estimates are produced, including for the Indigenous population, for each of the eight states and territories, the five remoteness areas and five socioeconomic quintiles. A number of method developments have been made as part of these studies, including redistribution of deaths data and a detailed quality framework for describing the robustness of the underlying data and methods. Data and methods continue to be refined as part of the studies, and developments in global studies and other national studies are incorporated where appropriate. This presentation will describe the history of burden of disease work in Australia, including some of the key method developments made, challenges faced over the years and lessons learned. It will also present some key results from the latest Australian Burden of Disease Study (2015) and how these estimates are being used for population health monitoring, health policy and research in Australia.