GBD 2019: The Hidden Burden of Eating Disorders: An Extension of Estimates From the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019
2021
This article from The Lancet Psychiatry seeks to estimate the burden of binge-eating disorder and other specified feeding or eating disorders (OSFED), as the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 only calculates the burden of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. The authors sourced studies from the GBD 2019 anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa epidemiological databases, performing a systematic review and including studies if they reported a non-zero prevalence of two or more eating disorders. Santomauro et al. found that the number of global eating disorder cases in 2019 that were not included in the GBD 2019 Study was 41.9 million, which were broken down among 17.3 million people with binge-eating disorder and 24.6 million people with OSFED. Collectively, binge-eating disorder and OSFED led to 3.7 million Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) globally, bringing the total eating disorder DALYs to 6.6 million in 2019. As binge-eating disorder and OSFED accounted for the majority of eating disorder cases and DALYs globally, the authors underscore the importance of including both in future iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study.
Led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, GBD is a global effort with researchers from over 150 countries and territories. IHME and other partnering organizations have developed numerous resources to disseminate and visualize the findings of the GBD studies, data visualizations and interactives, country profiles, policy reports, research articles, infographics, and the GBD Results Tool, which allows users to search GBD data.
Source:
Santomauro D et al. The Hidden Burden of Eating Disorders: An Extension of Estimates From the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet 2021; 8(4): 320-328. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00040-7.