2:00 PM - 2:15 PM
[HTT17-02] Health risk assessment using health indexes: Analysis of geographical disease burden using Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) and disease mapping
★Invited Papers
Keywords:Health index, Disease burden, Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY), Disease mapping
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought health risks closer to our daily lives and is a significant catalyst in the debate on biological and socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Geography has traditionally focused on elucidating the distribution of geographical events and processes. Ecological analysis and assessment of health risks from the perspective of the relationship between the environment and humans are required in health risk management. This study provides an overview of indexes used in health risk assessment and identifies the geographical disease burden in Japan using the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY), a comprehensive health index.
In economically developed countries, the epidemiological transition since the 20th century has changed disease structure from infectious to chronic diseases. Accordingly, research on the health and medical discipline has shifted from a growing interest in well-being and quality of life (QOL) to the perspectives on health maintenance, infection control, and health risk management. Furthermore, developing health indexes that can adapt to changes in disease structure must be developed. Thus, the World Health Organization and the World Bank developed the “disease burden” as a health index that considers healthy and unhealthy states. In this context, the DALY is a comprehensive index that includes simple mortality and morbidity as well as years of morbidity, disability, and premature death. DALY provides a comprehensive view of health losses due to various diseases and traumas and their associated risk factors and can help guide policy decisions targeting populations, which calculates as the sum of the number of years of life lost (YLL) and the number of years lived with disability (YLD).
The analysis revealed that compared with other G7 countries, the disease burden in Japan increased gradually from 1990 to 2019 due to the increase in YLD. The DALY by death or injury group indicated that the disease burden from neoplasms ranked first and did not change in rank, whereas the DALY for neurological disorders, diabetes and kidney diseases, and sense organ diseases increased. The spatial distribution and clustering of DALY rates by prefecture indicated that clusters with low disease burden are formed in urban areas and clusters with high disease burden in rural areas.
The DALY is used as a comprehensive health index in the health and medical discipline, but many studies have been conducted from a nonspatial perspective. Meanwhile, the spatial distribution of DALY can be used to assess aggregation to add a spatial perspective to the temporal index. The addition of geographical variables to the DALY model and refining the spatial scale will enable the ecological assessment of QOL, frailty problems and healthcare economics according to regional characteristics.
In economically developed countries, the epidemiological transition since the 20th century has changed disease structure from infectious to chronic diseases. Accordingly, research on the health and medical discipline has shifted from a growing interest in well-being and quality of life (QOL) to the perspectives on health maintenance, infection control, and health risk management. Furthermore, developing health indexes that can adapt to changes in disease structure must be developed. Thus, the World Health Organization and the World Bank developed the “disease burden” as a health index that considers healthy and unhealthy states. In this context, the DALY is a comprehensive index that includes simple mortality and morbidity as well as years of morbidity, disability, and premature death. DALY provides a comprehensive view of health losses due to various diseases and traumas and their associated risk factors and can help guide policy decisions targeting populations, which calculates as the sum of the number of years of life lost (YLL) and the number of years lived with disability (YLD).
The analysis revealed that compared with other G7 countries, the disease burden in Japan increased gradually from 1990 to 2019 due to the increase in YLD. The DALY by death or injury group indicated that the disease burden from neoplasms ranked first and did not change in rank, whereas the DALY for neurological disorders, diabetes and kidney diseases, and sense organ diseases increased. The spatial distribution and clustering of DALY rates by prefecture indicated that clusters with low disease burden are formed in urban areas and clusters with high disease burden in rural areas.
The DALY is used as a comprehensive health index in the health and medical discipline, but many studies have been conducted from a nonspatial perspective. Meanwhile, the spatial distribution of DALY can be used to assess aggregation to add a spatial perspective to the temporal index. The addition of geographical variables to the DALY model and refining the spatial scale will enable the ecological assessment of QOL, frailty problems and healthcare economics according to regional characteristics.