In the time span between 1990 and 2019, a general decrease in DALYs was observable, indicating an improvement on global health. In countries like Bangladesh, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Laos, Liberia, Maldives, Rwanda, and Uganda, the DALYs have been reduced by more than 50% by 2019. However, centain countries do not follow this trend. In countries like Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, the DALYs in 2019 have increased compared to 1990.
At a global level, there has been a notable shift of the main causes of the burden of disease. In 1990, almost half of the burden of disease resulted from communicable diseases. In 2019, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) held the largest share at more than 60%. The reasons of this shift are manifold. One of them is the significant reduciton in communicable and preventable diseases as income rose, and overall health and living standards improved (Max Roser & Hannah Ritchie, 2021).
According to the map, the urbanization rates in developed countries like Canada, America, England were greater than 70% in 1990. In contrast, the urbanization rate in some developing countries, such as Niger, Sudan and Egypt, still remained below 50% in 2019. As the scatterplot shows, urbanization is negatively associated with the burden of disease from all causes and the burden of communicable diseases. However, it has no association with the burden of non-communicable diseases and injuries.