The Burden of Disease in Germany at the National and Regional Level.

BACKGROUND: .Summary measures such as disability-adjusted life years (DALY) are becoming increasingly important for the standardized assessment of the burden of disease due to death and disability. The BURDEN 2020 pilot project was designed as an independent burden-of-disease study for Germany, which was based on nationwide data, but which also yielded regional estimates. METHODS: DALY is defined as the sum of years of life lost due to death (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD). YLL is the difference between the age at death due to disease and the remaining life expectancy at this age, while YLD quantifies the number of years individuals have spent with health impairments. Data are derived mainly from causes of death statistics, population health surveys, and claims data from health insurers. RESULTS: In 2017, there were approximately 12 million DALY in Germany, or 14 584 DALY per 100 000 inhabitants. Conditions which caused the greatest number of DALY were coronary heart disease (2321 DALY), low back pain (1735 DALY), and lung cancer (1197 DALY). Headache and dementia accounted for a greater disease burden in women than in men, while lung cancer and alcohol use disorders accounted for a greater disease burden in men than in women. Pain disorders and alcohol use disorders were the leading causes of DALY among young adults of both sexes. The disease burden rose with age for some diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, dementia, and diabetes mellitus. For some diseases and conditions, the disease burden varied by geographical region. CONCLUSION: The results indicate a need for age- and sex-specific prevention and for differing interventions according to geographic region. Burden of disease studies yield comprehensive population health surveillance data and are a useful aid to decision-making in health policy.

Prevalence of back and neck pain in Germany. Results from the BURDEN 2020 Burden of Disease Study.

Back and neck pain are widespread and can significantly reduce quality of life. A cross-sectional telephone survey (N=5,009) was carried out between October 2019 and March 2020 to gain a valid estimate of the prevalence of back and neck pain among adults in Germany. In addition to the frequency and intensity of back and neck pain, the study collected information about quality of life and comorbidity. The findings showed that 61.3% of respondents reported back pain in the last twelve months. Lower back pain was reported about twice as often as upper back pain, with 15.5% of respondents stating that they experienced chronic back pain. 45.7% reported neck pain, and 15.6% of respondents have experienced lower and upper back pain in addition to neck pain in the past year. Women are affected by all types of pain more often than men. About half of the respondents categorise their back or neck pain as moderate; older respondents report significantly more pain episodes per month than younger respondents. The results described here provide a comprehensive picture of the population-related limitations associated with back and neck pain and are used within the framework of the BURDEN 2020 study to quantify key indicators of burden of disease calculation.

Corrigendum: Migraine and tension-type headache in Germany. Prevalence and disease severity from the BURDEN 2020 Burden of Disease Study.

[This corrects the article on p. 2-24 in vol. 5.].

Migraine and tension-type headache in Germany. Prevalence and disease severity from the BURDEN 2020 Burden of Disease Study.

Headache disorders are widespread among women and men in Germany and are primarily associated with restrictions on quality of life. The two most common types of headache disorders are migraine and tension-type headache. In order to gain valid estimates of the prevalence of these conditions, a cross-sectional telephone-based survey was conducted among adults in Germany (N=5,009) between October 2019 and March 2020. The frequency, duration, the characteristics and comorbidities associated with headache were measured using the diagnostic criteria defined in the International Classification of Headache Disorders. 57.5% of women and 44.4% of men in Germany stated that they had had a headache in the last twelve months. 14.8% of women and 6.0% of men meet all of the diagnostic criteria for migraine. Tension-type headache affects 10.3% of women and 6.5% of men. Migraine and tension-type headache are predominantly found among people of working age and steadily decrease with age. Migraine is often accompanied by comorbidities such as depressive symptoms and anxiety disorders. People affected by headache disorders tend to receive very little professional medical care, with only a minority seeking treatment within a year. These results provide a comprehensive picture of the population-related impact of headache disorders and are used in the BURDEN 2020 study to quantify key indicators for burden of disease assessment.

[ICD coding of causes of death: challenges for calculating the burden of disease in Germany]. / ICD-Codierung von Todesursachen: Herausforderungen bei der Berechnung der Krankheitslast in Deutschland.

In the project BURDEN 2020 - "The burden of disease in Germany and its regions" - the years of life lost (YLL) due to premature mortality are calculated on the basis of official cause-of-death statistics. This requires the identification and redistribution of the so-called ill-defined ICD codes. "Ill-defined" means that an ICD code does not sufficiently reflect the cause of death, such that it is not informative for the calculation of the burden of disease.The first steps on the way to calculating cause-specific YLL are presented. Different frameworks of ill-defined codes are compared. The number of deaths with ill-defined codes that can be found in the German cause-of-death statistics in absolute and relative terms are analyzed, including how they are distributed by age, sex, and region.According to the WHO framework, 15.6% of the 925,200 deaths in Germany in 2015 can be identified as ill-defined. According to the framework of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), the proportion of ill-defined codes is 26.6%. The ICD-related distribution patterns hardly differ between WHO and IHME classifications. Considerable differences exist between the federal states, with shares of ill-defined codes between 16 and 35% (IHME framework).The cause-of-death statistics in Germany contain a considerable proportion of ill-defined codes. The differences between the federal states can only partially be explained by different electronic data processing. Due to further dissemination and improvement of electronic data collection, higher quality of cause-of-death statistics can be expected in the future.

BURDEN 2020-Burden of disease in Germany at the national and regional level.

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based policy measures need non-interest-guided information about the health status of a population and the diseases that affect the population the most. In such cases, a national burden of disease study can provide reliable insights at the regional level. AIM: This article presents the potential of the BURDEN 2020 project and its expected outcome for Germany at the national and regional level. METHODS: The BURDEN 2020 project uses several indicators including years of life lost (YLL) to cover the impact of mortality and years lived with disability (YLD) to cover morbidity. The sum of both is the measure of population health called disability adjusted life years (DALY). RESULTS: The study ranks individual diseases and risk factors based on their impact on population health. The burden of disease approach is assumed to be sensitive to subnational differences and may generate immediate benefits for regional planning. The BURDEN 2020 study will pilot a national burden of disease study for Germany that will later be transformed into a continuous data processing and visualization tool. This is done by using, modifying and supplementing the methodology employed by the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study to better fit the needs of health policy in Germany. This study is aimed at calculating the disease burden for up to 17 preselected diseases. Furthermore, the estimates of burden of disease are attributed to a selected set of risk factors. CONCLUSION: The Burden 2020 study will provide the results of a new, health-related data processing system to the public. This includes a noninterest-guided presentation of the burden of disease (DALY) in Germany at the national and regional level.

Erratum to: BURDEN 2020-Burden of disease in Germany at the national and regional level.

Erratum to:Bundesgesundheitsbl (2018) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-018-2793-0 The original publication of this article contained an error in the list of the authors, in which the contributing author Christian Schmidt was missing. The full list of authors has now been updated. The original article ….

Viral targeting of the interferon-{beta}-inducing Traf family member-associated NF-{kappa}B activator (TANK)-binding kinase-1.

Expression of the antiviral cytokines IFN-alpha/beta is among the most potent innate defenses of higher vertebrates to virus infections, which is controlled by the inducible transcription factor IFN regulatory factor (IRF)3. Borna disease virus (BDV) establishes persistent noncytolytic infections in animals and tissue culture cells, indicating that it can circumvent this antiviral reaction by an unexplained activity. In this study, we identify the BDV P protein as microbial gene product that associates with and inhibits the principal regulatory kinase of IRF3, Traf family member-associated NF-kappaB activator (TANK)-binding kinase 1 (TBK-1). We demonstrate that the P protein counteracts TBK-1-dependent IFN-beta expression in cells and, hence, the establishment of an antiviral state. Furthermore, our data show that the BDV P protein itself is phosphorylated by TBK-1, suggesting that P functions as a viral decoy substrate that prevents activation of cellular target proteins of TBK-1. Thus, our findings provide evidence for a previously undescribed mechanism by which a viral protein interferes with the induction of the antiviral IFN cascade.