Web-based tool charts disease, risk factors around the world

Technology steps up to the plate to, once again, help us all...

"Interactive graphics showing how causes of death and disability, and risk factors for disease, differ between countries and change over time were unveiled Tuesday.

The information is from the massive Global Burden of Disease project produced by 488 researchers and 303 institutions in 50 countries. It provides health profiles of 187 countries and allows the user to compare a nation to its geographic, economic or cultural neighbors.

The screens are interactive. Users can key in 291 diseases and 67 risk factors and see how prevalence has changed since 1990.

The graphs and lists are likely to function as a report card for policymakers, a hypothesis-generator for epidemiologists and an alternative to solitaire for global health wonks. The data are used in a study appearing in the Lancet this week that compares Britain’s health with that of 15 other European countries over 20 years."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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