Prioritising the development of severity distributions in burden of disease studies for countries in the European region

Severity distributions are a means of summarising the range of health loss suffered to disease which enables estimates of disease occurrence to be paired with disability weights to estimate Years Lost to Disability (YLD) in burden of disease studies. There is a lack of current data exploring severity distributions, which has led to the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study relying on using the same severity distributions across countries and regions across the world. This is also largely true for some national studies, although there are exceptions. Recent evidence has raised concerns that severity distributions are unlikely to be generalisable as major differences arise when using country-specific data to develop severity distributions. These issues raise uncertainties over interpreting YLD estimates, particularly if they are being used to develop and influence policies and to determine priorities across diseases and populations. It is clear that GBD researchers and those carrying out national studies need to work towards ensuring that estimates are based upon country-specific data, and, if possible, that the impact of assumptions are fully tested and understood. There is a lack of strategy about if, where, and how, this could be achieved, particularly around how efforts should be prioritised. This commentary advocates and presents a possible strategic approach to better understanding how efforts may be best placed.