Burden of musculoskeletal disorders in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 1990–2013: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013
Authors: Maziar Moradi-Lakeh, Mohammad H Forouzanfar, Stein Emil Vollset, Charbel El Bcheraoui, Farah Daoud, Ashkan Afshin, Raghid Charara, Ibrahim Khalil, Hideki Higashi, Mohamed Magdy Abd El Razek, Aliasghar Ahmad Kiadaliri, Khurshid Alam, Nadia Akseer, Nawal Al-Hamad, Raghib Ali, Mohammad AbdulAziz AlMazroa, Mahmoud A Alomari, Abdullah A Al-Rabeeah, Ubai Alsharif, Khalid A Altirkawi, Suleman Atique, Alaa Badawi, Lope H Barrero, Mohammed Basulaiman, Shahrzad Bazargan-Hejazi, Neeraj Bedi, Isabela M Bensenor, Rachelle Buchbinder, Hadi Danawi, Samath D Dharmaratne, Faiez Zannad, Maryam S Farvid, Seyed-Mohammad Fereshtehnejad, Farshad Farzadfar, Florian Fischer, Rahul Gupta, Randah Ribhi Hamadeh, Samer Hamidi, Masako Horino, Damian G Hoy, Mohamed Hsairi, Abdullatif Husseini, Mehdi Javanbakht, Jost B Jonas, Amir Kasaeian, Ejaz Ahmad Khan, Jagdish Khubchandani, Ann Kristin Knudsen, Jacek A Kopec, Raimundas Lunevicius, Hassan Magdy Abd El Razek, Azeem Majeed, Reza Malekzadeh, Kedar Mate, Alem Mehari, Michele Meltzer, Ziad A Memish, Mojde Mirarefin, Shafiu Mohammed, Aliya Naheed, Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer, In-Hwan Oh, Eun-Kee Park, Emmanuel Kwame Peprah, Farshad Pourmalek, Mostafa Qorbani, Anwar Rafay, Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar, Rahman Shiri, Sajjad Ur Rahman, Rajesh Kumar Rai, Saleem M Rana, Sadaf G Sepanlou, Masood Ali Shaikh, Ivy Shiue, Abla Mehio Sibai, Diego Augusto Santos Silva, Jasvinder A Singh, Jens Christoffer Skogen, Abdullah Sulieman Terkawi, Kingsley N Ukwaja, Ronny Westerman, Naohiro Yonemoto, Seok-Jun Yoon, Mustafa Z Younis, Zoubida Zaidi, Maysaa El Sayed Zaki, Stephen S Lim, Haidong Wang, Theo Vos, Mohsen Naghavi, Alan D Lopez, Christopher J L Murray, Ali H Mokdad
Journal: Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (2017)

We used findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 to report the burden of musculoskeletal disorders in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR).The burden of musculoskeletal disorders was calculated for the EMR's 22 countries between 1990 and 2013. A systematic analysis was performed on mortality and morbidity data to estimate prevalence, death, years of live lost, years lived with disability and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).For musculoskeletal disorders, the crude DALYs rate per 100 000 increased from 1297.1 (95% uncertainty interval (UI) 924.3-1703.4) in 1990 to 1606.0 (95% UI 1141.2-2130.4) in 2013. During 1990-2013, the total DALYs of musculoskeletal disorders increased by 105.2% in the EMR compared with a 58.0% increase in the rest of the world. The burden of musculoskeletal disorders as a proportion of total DALYs increased from 2.4% (95% UI 1.7-3.0) in 1990 to 4.7% (95% UI 3.6-5.8) in 2013. The range of point prevalence (per 1000) among the EMR countries was 28.2-136.0 for low back pain, 27.3-49.7 for neck pain, 9.7-37.3 for osteoarthritis (OA), 0.6-2.2 for rheumatoid arthritis and 0.1-0.8 for gout. Low back pain and neck pain had the highest burden in EMR countries.This study shows a high burden of musculoskeletal disorders, with a faster increase in EMR compared with the rest of the world. The reasons for this faster increase need to be explored. Our findings call for incorporating prevention and control programmes that should include improving health data, addressing risk factors, providing evidence-based care and community programmes to increase awareness.