A brief history of GBD studies

The history of research on the global burden of disease (GBD) is closely associated with the names of Chris Murray, Alan Lopez and their network of collaborators.

Professor CJL Murray

Professor AD Lopez

The group first devised methods for the study of the burden of disease at the start of the 1990s. The project was sponsored by the World Bank in collaboration with the World Health Organization. The first set of estimates of the global burden of disease in 1990 was published in the 1993 World Development Report (World Bank 1993) and formed one input into the review of global health policy contained in the report.

A revised set of GBD estimates for 1990 was published by the World Health Organization the next year (Murray and Lopez 1994) and later the final results of the study were published in book form (Murray and Lopez 1996) and in a series of articles in the Lancet (Murray and Lopez 1997).