The Burden of Communicable Diseases in Europe (BCoDE) is a project funded by an ECDC grant, implemented by a European Consortium lead by the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) including both academic centres and national health institutes with experts from all around Europe. The aim is to estimate the burden of communicable diseases applying composite health measures (DALYs: Disability Adjusted Life Years) in order to summarize the overall burden in one single metric and therefore to compare the relative burden of each communicable disease.
A Methodology Protocol has been developed and is tested in four EU Member States (Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Estonia). It provides for estimating the burden of the pathogens under Decision 2119/98 - Specific Grant Agreement n.2b on Current and Future Burden of Communicable Diseases in the European Union and EEA/EFTA countries (Framework Partnership Agreement): GRANT/2008/003.
In the first months the project estimated DALYs for measles, hepatitis B, influenza and salmonellosis and reviewed the methodology. Later, estimates for all other communicable diseases of the four countries included in the field test study will become available. Disease reports outlining the methodological choices, the data sources and the variables selected (e.g. multiplication factors adjusting for under-estimation, disability weights) are being developed for presentation at a workshop involving Member States.
Based on the results from the field test study, a Toolkit will be developed and distributed to interested EU Member States to facilitate calculation of their national burden of disease.
Other activities planned in this area include setting up studies for the estimation of comprehensive set of disability weights focused on communicable diseases, developing methodology for estimation of the economic burden of disease and of prevention and intervention strategies.
The project has greatly benefitted from the experience of all the Centres involved in the European Consortium lead by RIVM and the constant support from WHO experts.
One of the important outcomes of the study, beyond generation of disease burden estimates, will be the identification of gaps in data availability and quality, proposals for ways to improve in these areas and improvement of methodology to adjust for underreporting in notification data.
Moreover, once the baseline DALY estimates will be computed, it will be possible to expand to dynamic studies and develop sensitivity analysis depending on different variables (e.g. risk factors, interventions to name some) and to develop forecasting scenarios.
For questions and suggestions, please write to: BCoDE@ecdc.europa.eu