Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Mar;19(3):255-265.
doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(19)30411-9. Epub 2019 Dec 5.

The global burden of neurological disorders: translating evidence into policy

Valery L Feigin  1 , Theo Vos  2 , Emma Nichols  2 , Mayowa O Owolabi  3 , William M Carroll  4 , Martin Dichgans  5 , Günther Deuschl  6 , Priya Parmar  7 , Michael Brainin  8 , Christopher Murray  2
Affiliations
Review

The global burden of neurological disorders: translating evidence into policy

Valery L Feigin et al. Lancet Neurol. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Neurological disorders are the leading cause of disability and the second leading cause of death worldwide. In the past 30 years, the absolute numbers of deaths and people with disabilities owing to neurological diseases have risen substantially, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries, and further increases are expected globally as a result of population growth and ageing. This rise in absolute numbers of people affected suggests that advances in prevention and management of major neurological disorders are not sufficiently effective to counter global demographic changes. Urgent measures to reduce this burden are therefore needed. Because resources for health care and research are already overstretched, priorities need to be set to guide policy makers, governments, and funding organisations to develop and implement action plans for prevention, health care, and research to tackle the growing challenge of neurological disorders.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests

VLF reports that he is a CEO of the New Zealand Stroke Education (charitable) Trust, outside the submitted work. GD has served as a consultant for Boston Scientific, Cavion, and Functional Neuromodulation; has received lecture fees from Boston Scientific and royalties from Thieme publishers; and is a government employee and receives funding for his research through his institution from the German Research Council, the German Ministry of Education and Research, and Medtronic, outside the submitted work. WMC reports travel fees from Sanofi Genzyme, Biogen, and Merck, and travel and personal fees from Roche and Novartis, outside the submitted work. All other authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:. Proportional contribution of various neurological disorders to the overall burden of neurological disorders
Proportions (%) of disability-adjusted life-years (A) and deaths (B). Based on data from Feigin and colleagues.
Figure 2:
Figure 2:. Global DALYs by age for various neurological disorders in 2016
Proportions for men (A) and women (B). Early neonatal is 0–7 days; late neonatal is 7–28 days; post-neonatal is 28 days to 1 year. Reproduced from Feigin and colleagues, by permission of Elsevier. DALY=disability-adjusted life-year.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Feigin VL, Nichols E, Alam T, et al. Global, regional, and national burden of neurological disorders, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Neurol 2019; 18: 459–80. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Roth GA, Abate D, Abate KH, et al. Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet 2018; 392: 1736–88. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Feigin VL, Vos T. Global burden of neurological disorders: from Global burden of disease estimates to actions. Neuroepidemiology 2019; 52: 1–2. - PubMed
    1. GBD 2016 Stroke Collaborators. Global, regional, and national burden of stroke, 1990 to 2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Neurol 2019; 18: 439–58. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Feigin VL, Nguyen G, Cercy K, et al. Global, regional, and country-specific lifetime risks of stroke, 1990 and 2016. N Engl J Med 2018; 379: 2429–37. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types