GBD 2023 data and tools guide
Section 1: Introduction
This page provides a general overview of resources from the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) 2023 and the suite of web-based tools used to disseminate these results. These tools allow students, researchers, policymakers, and other members of the public to access, view, and interact with GBD data outputs. They are all freely available for non-commercial use.
IHME maintains a collection of GBD tools and data visualizations where users can query, view, and download information and data of the following types:
- Data sources: These are lists of the primary data sources used to produce estimates for different components of the study and relevant metadata about them.
- Estimates: These are final GBD results, the point estimates and 95% uncertainty intervals, where appropriate, for study indicators.
While most GBD results are distributed through these tools, certain results are published and made available for download as prepackaged files in the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx), IHME’s catalog of health and demographic data.
Additional data resources for GBD 2023 are available at http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-2023. More information on the GBD study is available at https://www.healthdata.org/research-analysis/gbd.
If you have questions or comments about any of the GBD 2023 data or online tools, please email us at [email protected].
Section 2: Term definitions
Section 3: Tools
GBD Results
Create an account to use the tool to view and download estimates of the world’s health as CSV files: GBD Results.
GBD Compare
Create an account to access the tool and analyze how disease patterns have changed over time with the GBD’s most comprehensive visualization: GBD Compare.
New! GBD Sex Differences
Explore patterns of differences between females and males in the world’s health levels and trends from 1990 to 2023 in this new interactive tool: GBD Sex Differences.
GBD Cancer Compare
Analyze updated estimates of the world’s health for 52 cancers from 1990 to 2023 in this interactive tool: GBD Cancer Compare.
Burden of Proof
Explore the strength of evidence between health risks and outcomes, indicating the likelihood of certain behaviors to have an impact on health: Burden of Proof.
GBD Sources Tool
View the citations for the data sources used to generate GBD 2023 estimates and research findings: GBD Sources Tool.
Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx)
The GHDx is a catalog of data sources related to health. It includes citations for all sources used in the most recent version of the GBD study. The GHDx also includes sources that are not included in or relevant to the GBD but are health-related and may be of use to other research.
Tool outputs and indicators
Section 4: Appendices
Appendix 1: Cause, REI, and Locations Hierarchies
Available from the GHDx: Global Burden of Disease Study 2023 (GBD 2023) Cause, REI, and Location Hierarchies.
The All Location Hierarchies, Cause Hierarchy, and REI Hierarchy (risk factor, etiology, impairment, and injury n-code) sheets contain GBD 2023 reporting hierarchies with values in the order they appear in online tools, such as the GBD Results Tool and GBD Compare.
The All Location Hierarchies sheet contains the GBD 2023 reporting hierarchy and a number of other hierarchies which allow users to aggregate results by location in various ways (by GBD regions, World Bank regions, OECD countries, African Union countries, etc.).
Locations and levels:
- Level 3 = country or territory
- Levels 4 and 5 = subnational units
To view each hierarchy in its proper nested order (the order they appear in online tools), sort by the Sort Order column.
To filter for the child values of a given parent value in any hierarchy file, filter by the Parent ID.
In the Cause Hierarchy sheet, filter by cause outline value (e.g., all causes in “A” or “A.1”) or for causes for which either only years of life lost (YLLs) or years lived with disability (YLDs) results were produced.
Location set version IDs
| Location set ID | Location set |
|---|---|
| 1511 | GBD 2023 Reporting |
| 1432 | African Union |
| 1275 | Arab World |
| 1266 | Commonwealth |
| 1272 | European Union |
| 1437 | G20 |
| 1277 | Gulf Cooperation Council |
| 1274 | Nordic Region |
| 1264 | Oceania |
| 1307 | OECD countries |
| 1434 | Organization of Islamic Cooperation |
| 1278 | Sahel Region |
| 1305 | World Bank income levels |
| 1300 | World Bank regions |
Select variable definitions
| Variable | Definition |
|---|---|
| Cause ID | Cause IDs for cause variables come from an IHME database that creates and stores unique numeric identifiers for each GBD cause. |
| Cause Outline | This outline represents the hierarchy of causes and the depth of each cause in the hierarchy by alphanumeric code for the current round of GBD. |
| Level | This indicates a location value’s level in a location hierarchy. |
| Location ID | Locations IDs for geographic variables come from an IHME database that creates and stores unique numeric identifiers for locations of various location types. |
| Location Set Version ID | IDs for GBD 2023 location sets (including the GBD locations and custom region locations) come from an IHME database that creates and stores unique numeric identifiers for location set versions. |
| Parent | This indicates the parent ID for a value’s parent in the hierarchy. For example, all 31 Mexican states and one federal district (Mexico City) have a parent ID of 130, the location ID for the country of Mexico. |
| REI ID | REI IDs for risk, etiology, impairment, and injury n-code (injury by nature) variables come from an IHME database that creates and stores unique numeric identifiers for each risk, etiology, impairment, and injury. |
| REI Type | This indicates whether the value is a risk, etiology, impairment, or injury. |
| Sort Order | This can be used to sort a set of values in a particular order (not alphabetical, but the order in which the values appear in online tools, paper tables, etc.). |
| YLL Only | This indicates causes for which only mortality estimates (deaths, years of life lost [YLLs]) were produced. |
| YLD Only | This indicates causes for which only nonfatal estimates (years lived with disability [YLDs]) were produced. |
Appendix 2: Results by Measure and Cause-Risk/Impairment/Injury Pairs
This file contains a set of sheets that display the measures (deaths, DALYs, incidence, etc.) for which estimates are provided for each GBD cause, risk, impairment, and injury by nature. Filter on cause, risk, etc., or a measure (deaths, YLDs, incidence, etc.), to access available results. Additionally, the sheets display which causes each risk, impairment, and injury by nature are associated with. For example:
- In the “Risk” sheet, filter for “Ambient particulate matter pollution” in the “Risk” column to view the subset of causes associated with that risk.
- In the “Impairment” sheet, filter for “Blindness” in the “Impairment” column to view the subset of causes associated with that impairment.
Appendix 3: Metrics by Measure Definitions
This file (also included as a tab in the “Results by Measure” file) provides definitions for each metric, by measure, contained in the GBD Results tool and GBD Compare.
Appendix 4: Contexts by Age
This file provides the full set of age groups used, cumulatively, in results available from the GBD Results tool, and the context each age group appears in. Filter on contexts like cause, risk, life expectancy, and population, to see the ages available for each.