Barriers in the implementation of burden of disease estimates in Belgium and potential solutions

Injuries are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Europe, and not only place a huge burden on individuals and health care services but on society as a whole. However, estimates on the burden of disease expressed as disability adjusted life years (DALY) are only available in some countries. Other countries don’t have the required data or resources available to calculate DALYs attributable to injuries. The recent report on the European Injury Data Base (IDB) shows that there are important between-country differences in morbidity and mortality related to injuries, emphasizing the important of country-specific estimates. In the current presentation the process of DALY calculations will be briefly discussed, after which a more in-depth scope will be given on the barriers that exist in Belgium to calculate these valuables DALYs. These barriers include, for example, a lack of data availability and specific barriers in linking data registries. Afterwards, the potential solutions to yield estimates based on incomplete information will be discussed.