Background

In 2015, the United Nations developed a sustainable-development-goals-framework, which contained 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our project focuses on the SDG Three, which aims to "ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages." The aim of our project is to provide an overview of global burden of disease, and its relationship to urbanization.

Everyone, all over the world, deserves to live a long life in full health. In order to achieve this goal, a comprehensive picture of disabling and lethal health situations across countries and time is needed. In order to get a comprehensive and globally consistent source of information on the burden of diseases, the World Bank and the World Health Organization decided to launch a project called Global Burden of Disease (GBD) in the 1980s and early 1990s (King & Bertino, 2008). The GBD was designed to address three primary goals: to provide information on non-lethal health outcomes for debates on international health policy, which are generally focused on mortality; to develop unbiased epidemiological assessments for major disorders; and to quantify the burden of disease with a measure that could also be used for cost-effectiveness analysis (Murray & Lopez, 1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 1997d). Until now, GBD studies have consistently provided comprehensive assessments of the state of health in the world (Gwatkin et al., 1999). A key measure to assess the burden of disease is the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) (Devleesschauwer et al., 2014). The video below explains exactly how to calculate DALYs.

There are three main components of the burden of disease: communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional diseases; non-communicable diseases; and injuries (Murray & Lopez, 1997b). The main causes of the burden of disease differ in various regions. In 1990, communicable diseases were responsible for 59% of deaths and disabilities among the poorest 20% of the world's population. However, among the richest 20% of the world's population, non-communicable diseases caused 85% of deaths and disabilities (Gwatkin et al., 1999). According to predictions, 60% of the world population will live in urban areas by 2025 (Patil, 2014). Cities can offer better health services. At the same time, urbanization brings with it a range of health hazards: substandard housing, crowding, air pollution, insufficient or contaminated drinking water, inadequate sanitation and solid waste disposal services, industrial waste, increased motor vehicle traffic and so on (Moore et al., 2003). It is therefore important to understand the relationship between the burden of disease and urbanization.

Project

Our project consists of two parts: first, we visualize the changes of GBD from 1990 to 2019. Our map contains four sub-maps: a map containing data of all diseases, a map based on the infectious diseases, one based on non-infectious diseases, and one representing the injuries. Aided by an animation, the user can see the changes that have taken place over the years. Second, the change in urbanization is also visible, and the relationship between burden of disease and urbanization is shown in a scatter plot, too.

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