Burden of disease evidence leads to health improvement plan in England

Public Health England (PHE) just wrapped up the fifth year of their “Stoptober” challenge, a campaign to get 7 million people in England to stop smoking. This campaign reflects one of the seven priorities outlined in PHE’s plan of action, “From evidence into action: opportunities to protect and improve the nation’s health,” which was crafted using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study.

The priorities outlined in the plan include “tackling obesity, ensuring every child has the best start in life, tackling the growth in antimicrobial resistance, achieving a year-on-year decline in tuberculosis incidence, and reducing smoking, harmful drinking, [and] the risk of dementia.” The plan states that “these [priorities] are supported by the evidence in the Global Burden of Disease study that emphasizes just how important these factors are from an epidemiological perspective in determining our health, and also how the same risks contribute to so many of the conditions and diseases that cause ill health and premature death.”

In addition to underpinning PHE’s anti-smoking challenge, the GBD study’s findings directly shaped the plan of action’s focus on reducing harmful drinking after the study showed that alcohol was the leading risk factor for death in 15 to 49 year olds in the UK.

Risk factors for death in 15–49 year olds in the UK, 2015

Note: Access these findings in the GBD Compare visualization tool here: http://ihmeuw.org/3ybu

Yet another illustration of the GBD’s influence on PHE’s plan is the priority of tackling obesity. According to the GBD, in the UK, high body-mass index is the third-leading risk factor for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs – that is, years of healthy life lost due to ill-health, disability, or early death) for both sexes across all ages. From such findings, PHE was able to formulate appropriate intervention strategies in order to confront some of the nation’s greatest health challenges.

In September 2016, PHE featured GBD findings in factsheets showing how the UK ranks in adult and child obesity compared to other countries. 

Note: Public Health England featured findings from the Global Burden of Disease study in the “Adult obesity international comparisons data factsheet.”

PHE also created a Disease Burden Unit that collaborated with Global Burden of Disease researchers to track health outcomes at the local level. The results were published in the Lancet on September 14^th, 2015, titled: “Changes in health in England, with analysis by English regions and areas of deprivation, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013.” PHE’s plan of action summarizes the value of transparent data, such as the estimates generated by the Global Burden of Disease Study, by noting that meaningful “data and information will allow communities and decision-makers to make better decisions about how to improve health, and will increase accountability.”

Informed by in-depth evidence, per its plan of action PHE is attempting to transform its nation’s health by adopting a “fundamentally new approach to creating and sustaining health, mental and physical, at every stage of life and across all (their) communities.”