Environmental burden of disease assessment This publication characterizes the environmental burden of disease in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) measured by the excess number of deaths and illnesses in the population due to exposure to environmental hazards. The robust methods used in this risk analysis can be applied to any country or region. This publication documents the systematic multi step process used to identify environmental priorities and the detailed methods used to quantify the disease burden attributable to each risk. Based on the results of the burden of disease assessment the publication summarizes the subsequent steps.