CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 11,386Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk ManagementGlobal Health and EpidemiologyHealthcare Systems and Public Health

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 33 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Projections of Global Mortality and Burden of Disease from 2002 to 2030

Open access
Mathers, Colin D, Loncar, Dejan·2006·PLoS Medicine
DOI 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030442PMC PMC1664601
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Global and regional projections of mortality and burden of disease by cause for the years 2000, 2010, and 2030 were published by Murray and Lopez in 1996 as part of the Global Burden of Disease project. These projections, which are based on 1990 data, continue to be widely quoted, although they are substantially outdated; in particular, they substantially underestimated the spread of HIV/AIDS. To address the widespread demand for information on likely future trends in global health, and thereby to support international health policy and priority setting, we have prepared new projections of mortality and burden of disease to 2030 starting from World Health Organization estimates of mortality and burden of disease for 2002. This paper describes the methods, assumptions, input data, and results. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Relatively simple models were used to project future health trends under three scenarios-baseline, optimistic, and pessimistic-based largely on projections of economic and social development, and using the historically observed relationships of these with cause-specific mortality rates. Data inputs have been updated to take account of the greater availability of death registration data and the latest available projections for HIV/AIDS, income, human capital, tobacco smoking, body mass index, and other inputs. In all three scenarios there is a dramatic shift in the distribution of deaths from younger to older ages and from communicable, maternal, perinatal, and nutritional causes to noncommunicable disease causes. The risk of death for children younger than 5 y is projected to fall by nearly 50% in the baseline scenario between 2002 and 2030. The proportion of deaths due to noncommunicable disease is projected to rise from 59% in 2002 to 69% in 2030. Global HIV/AIDS deaths are projected to rise from 2.8 million in 2002 to 6.5 million in 2030 under the baseline scenario, which assumes coverage with antiretroviral drugs reaches 80% by 2012. Under the optimistic scenario, which also assumes increased prevention activity, HIV/AIDS deaths are projected to drop to 3.7 million in 2030. Total tobacco-attributable deaths are projected to rise from 5.4 million in 2005 to 6.4 million in 2015 and 8.3 million in 2030 under our baseline scenario. Tobacco is projected to kill 50% more people in 2015 than HIV/AIDS, and to be responsible for 10% of all deaths globally. The three leading causes of burden of disease in 2030 are projected to include HIV/AIDS, unipolar depressive disorders, and ischaemic heart disease in the baseline and pessimistic scenarios. Road traffic accidents are the fourth leading cause in the baseline scenario, and the third leading cause ahead of ischaemic heart disease in the optimistic scenario. Under the baseline scenario, HIV/AIDS becomes the leading cause of burden of disease in middle- and low-income countries by 2015. CONCLUSIONS: These projections represent a set of three visions of the future for population health, based on certain explicit assumptions. Despite the wide uncertainty ranges around future projections, they enable us to appreciate better the implications for health and health policy of currently observed trends, and the likely impact of fairly certain future trends, such as the ageing of the population, the continued spread of HIV/AIDS in many regions, and the continuation of the epidemiological transition in developing countries. The results depend strongly on the assumption that future mortality trends in poor countries will have a relationship to economic and social development similar to those that have occurred in the higher-income countries.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030442

Cites

33 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Figures

Figure 1 Projected Life Expectancy at Birth in 2030 by World Bank Region and Sex: Baseline, Optimistic, and Pessimistic Scenarios Compared with 2002 Estimates
Figure 1 Projected Life Expectancy at Birth in 2030 by World Bank Region and Sex: Baseline, Optimistic, and Pessimistic Scenarios Compared with 2002 EstimatesCC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 2 Global Numbers of Deaths by Age and Sex: Baseline, Optimistic, and Pessimistic Scenarios for 2030 Compared with 2002 Estimates
Figure 2 Global Numbers of Deaths by Age and Sex: Baseline, Optimistic, and Pessimistic Scenarios for 2030 Compared with 2002 EstimatesCC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 3 Baseline Projections of Deaths from Group I, Group II, and Group III Causes, World, 2002–2030
Figure 3 Baseline Projections of Deaths from Group I, Group II, and Group III Causes, World, 2002–2030CC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 4 Projections of Total AIDS Deaths (Thousands) by Income Group for Three Scenarios Scenarios are indicated: baseline (solid lines), optimistic (dotted lines), and pessimistic (dashed lines).
Figure 4 Projections of Total AIDS Deaths (Thousands) by Income Group for Three Scenarios Scenarios are indicated: baseline (solid lines), optimistic (dotted lines), and pessimistic (dashed lines).CC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 5 Projections of Global Deaths (Millions) for Selected Causes, for Three Scenarios: Baseline, Optimistic, and Pessimistic, 2002–2030
Figure 5 Projections of Global Deaths (Millions) for Selected Causes, for Three Scenarios: Baseline, Optimistic, and Pessimistic, 2002–2030CC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 6 Comparison of Baseline Projections 2002–2030 with the Original GBD Projections 1990–2020: Global Deaths for All Causes, and Major Cause Groups
Figure 6 Comparison of Baseline Projections 2002–2030 with the Original GBD Projections 1990–2020: Global Deaths for All Causes, and Major Cause GroupsCC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 7 Decomposition of Projected Change in Numbers of Deaths into Demographic and Epidemiological Components, by Broad Cause Group and Income Group, 2002–2030
Figure 7 Decomposition of Projected Change in Numbers of Deaths into Demographic and Epidemiological Components, by Broad Cause Group and Income Group, 2002–2030CC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 8 Projected Numbers of Tobacco-Caused Deaths for the World and for High-Income and Middle- plus Low-Income Countries, Three Scenarios, 2002–2030
Figure 8 Projected Numbers of Tobacco-Caused Deaths for the World and for High-Income and Middle- plus Low-Income Countries, Three Scenarios, 2002–2030CC BY · PubMed Central
Figure 9 Projected Growth in Road Traffic Fatalities, 2002–2020: A Comparison of World Bank Projections with GBD Projections
Figure 9 Projected Growth in Road Traffic Fatalities, 2002–2020: A Comparison of World Bank Projections with GBD ProjectionsCC BY · PubMed Central

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Show all 33 references

Research works printed but not linked: 23

  1. Murray, 1996, The global burden of disease, 325
  2. Murray, 1997, Lancet, 349, 1498
  3. Lee, 1992, J Am Stat Assoc, 87, 659
  4. Lee, 2000, NAAJ, 4, 80
  5. Weinstein, 1987, Am J Public Health, 77, 1417
  6. Wolfson, 1994, World Health Stat Q, 47, 157
  7. Bronnum-Hansen, 1999, J Epidemiol Community Health, 53, 300
  8. Stover, 2002, Lancet, 360, 73
  9. Salomon, 2002, Popul Dev Rev, 28, 205
  10. Lopez, 2006, Lancet, 367, 1747
  11. Peto, 1992, Lancet, 339, 1268
  12. Mathers, 2005, Bull World Health Organ, 83, 171
  13. Barro, 1996, Am Econ Rev, 86, 218
  14. Ezzati, 2004, Comparative quantification of health risks: Global and regional burden of disease attributable to selected major risk factors, 959
  15. Ezzati, 2003, Tob Control, 12, 79
  16. Shibuya, 2005, Int J Cancer, 117, 476
  17. Walker, 2003, AIDS, 17, 2215
  18. Salomon, 2005, PLoS Med, 2, e16
  19. Bray, 2006, Nat Rev Cancer, 6, 63
  20. Wild, 2004, Diabetes Care, 27, 1047
  21. Ohinmaa, 2004, Can J Diabetes, 28, 1
  22. Boyle, 2001, Diabetes Care, 24, 1936
  23. Peto, 1996, Br Med Bull, 52, 12

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 401–500 of 1,142

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Mathers, C. D., & Loncar, D.
Affiliations
World Health Organization (CH)
Corresponding author
Mathers, Colin D
ORCID
Mathers, Colin D
Venue
PLoS Medicine
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2006-11-28
Volume
3
Issue
11
Pages
e442
ISSN
  • 1549-1277 (ISSN-L)
  • 1549-1676
DOI
10.1371/journal.pmed.0030442
PMC
PMC1664601
OpenAlex
W2054931962
Cited by
11,386
References
33
Citations by year
2026: 205 · 2025: 373 · 2024: 586 · 2023: 646 · 2022: 671 · 2021: 738 · 2020: 801 · 2019: 833 · 2018: 855 · 2017: 787 · 2016: 796 · 2015: 844 · 2014: 709 · 2013: 627 · 2012: 490
FWCI
592.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • World Health Organization
  • Strong
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Demography › Insurance, Mortality, Demography, Risk Management
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Global Health and Epidemiology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Healthcare Systems and Public Health
Keywords
disease burden, non-communicable diseases, HIV mortality, communicable disease mortality, child mortality, economic development scenarios, age distribution of deaths, body mass index, human capital, income and mortality, death registration data
MeSH terms
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Cause of Death, Child, Child, Preschool, Developing Countries, Epidemiology, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Middle Aged, Mortality, Smoking, Global Health, HIV Infections

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review