Aims and objectives

Aims

To explain the methods used to study the burden of disease and their rationale.

Objectives

At the end of this session, you should be able to:

• Explain the aims and defining characteristics of burden of disease studies
• Calculate and interpret key measures of the burden of disease, including disability-adjusted life years and health-adjusted life expectancy
• Critically discuss the main assumptions and value judgements involved in calculating the burden of disease
• Outline the history of burden of disease studies and explain key changes and developments in the methods used for them
• Evaluate the findings of burden of disease studies, identifying the most important insights from them.

This session will take about 2.5 hours to complete.