Methodological Framework for World Health Organization Estimates of the Global Burden of Foodborne Disease
December
Methodological Framework for World Health Organization Estimates of the Global Burden of Foodborne Disease
Brecht Devleesschauwer 0 1
Juanita A. Haagsma 0 1
Frederick J. Angulo 0 1
David C. Bellinger 0 1
Dana Cole 0 1
Dörte Döpfer 0 1
Aamir Fazil 0 1
Eric M. Fèvre 0 1
Herman J. Gibb 0 1
Tine Hald 0 1
Martyn D. Kirk 0 1
Robin J. Lake 0 1
Charline Maertens de Noordhout 0 1
Colin D. Mathers 0 1
Scott A. McDonald 0 1
Sara M. Pires 0 1
Niko Speybroeck 0 1
M. Kate Thomas 0 1
Paul R. Torgerson 0 1
Felicia Wu 0 1
Arie H. Havelaar 0 1
Nicolas Praet 0 1
0 1 Department of Virology, Parasitology and Immunology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University , Merelbeke , Belgium , 2 Insitute of Health and Society (IRSS), Université catholique de Louvain , Brussels , Belgium , 3 Department of Biomedical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium, 4 Department of Animal Sciences and Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida , Gainesville, FL , United States of America, 5 Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center , Rotterdam , The Netherlands , 6 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Atlanta, GA , United States of America, 7 Department of Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School , Boston, MA , United States of America, 8 Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health , Boston, MA , United States of America, 9 Department of Medical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America, 10 Public Health Agency of Canada , Guelph, Ontario , Canada , 11 Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool , Leahurst Campus, Neston , United Kingdom , 12 International Livestock Research Institute , Nairobi, Kenya, 13 Gibb Epidemiology Consulting, Arlington, VA , United States of America, 14 National Food Institute, Danish Technical University , Lyngby , Denmark , 15 National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Research School of Population Health, The Australian National University , Canberra , Australia , 16 Institute of Environmental Science and Research , Christchurch , New Zealand , 17 Department of Health Statistics and Information Systems, World Health Organization , Geneva , Switzerland , 18 Centre for Infectious Disease Control, National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, The Netherlands, 19 Section of Epidemiology, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich , Zurich , Switzerland , 20 Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Department of Agricultural , Food, and Resource Economics , Michigan State University , East Lansing, MI , United States of America, 21 National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), Bilthoven, the Netherlands, 22 Utrecht University , Utrecht , Netherlands
1 Editor: Mirjam E. E. Kretzschmar, The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment , NETHERLANDS
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OPEN ACCESS
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are
within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
The R source code is also available from https://
github.com/brechtdv/FERG.
Funding: This study was commissioned and paid for
by the World Health Organization (WHO). Copyright
in the original work on which this article is based
belongs to WHO. The authors have been given
Background
The Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference Group (FERG) was established
in 2007 by the World Health Organization to estimate the global burden of foodborne
diseases (FBDs). This paper describes the methodological framework developed by FERG's
Computational Task Force to transform epidemiological information into FBD burden estimates.
Methods and Findings
The global and regional burden of 31 FBDs was quantified, along with limited estimates for
5 other FBDs, using Disability-Adjusted Life Years in a hazard- and incidence-based
permission to publish this article. Gibb Epidemiology
Consulting, LLC, provided support in the form of
salaries for author [HJG], but did not have any
additional role in the study design, data collection and
analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the
manuscript. The specific roles of this author are
articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.
Competing Interests: All authors serve as members
of the World Health Organization advisory body—the
Foodborne Disease Burden Epidemiology Reference
Group—without remuneration. The authors declare
no competing interests. Co-author Herman J. Gibb is
the owner of Gibb Epidemiology Consulting. There
are no patents, products in development or marketed
products to declare. This does not alter the authors'
adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing
data and materials.
approach. To accomplish this task, the following workflow was defined: outline of disease
models and collection of epidemiological data; design and completion of a database
template; development of an imputation model; identification o (...truncated)