An ongoing modeling study and multiple analyses of the disease burden in 204 countries and territories reveal a dangerous combination of rising rates of preventable chronic diseases that increased vulnerability to COVID-19 and ineffective public health responses that failed to stem the pandemic.The Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, the most comprehensive known study of its kind, published yesterday as a special issue of The Lancet, details the burden of 369 diseases and injuries and analyzes 286 causes of death and 87 risk factors from 1990 to 2019.
Led by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, the study is designed to identify countries with the greatest need for public