Trends in health and disability in Botswana. An analysis of the global burden of disease study

Abstract

Purpose

Globally, years of life lost are declining, while years lived with disability are increasing. In high socio-demographic index countries, this trend has been attributed to an overall ageing population and rehabilitation services have begun to adjust to this change. In low- and middle-income countries, this trend is less well understood. Hence, the WHO’s ‘Rehabilitation 2030 Call for Action’ and ‘Rehabilitation in Health Systems Guide’ call for better assessment of the situation. In order to understand trends and causes in middle income countries such as Botswana, we examine the change over time in causes and number of years lived with disability and years of life lost.

Methods

We conducted a secondary analysis of the Global Burden of Disease 2017 data, exploring the change over time in Disability Adjusted Life Years per 100 000 people over the period 1990–2016. The descriptive analysis focuses on the contribution of years lived with disability towards the burden of disease within Botswana compared with the world, sub-Saharan Africa, and high-income countries.

Results

Our results show that Botswana’s top causes of years of life lost are HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, cardiovascular diseases, maternal and neonatal disorders, respiratory infections and tuberculosis, and neoplasms. Years lived with disability have increased over time, which is driven by mental disorders, HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, musculoskeletal disorders, neurological disorders, and skin and subcutaneous diseases.

Conclusions

Botswana needs better data to prepare its emerging health systems to accommodate the increased need for disability support and rehabilitation services caused by communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Botswana has an increase in disability prevalence over time that requires the development of disability and rehabilitation services.

• The greatest contributors towards disability adjusted life years in Botswana are currently mental disorders (13.7%), HIV and other sexual transmitted diseases, (13.0%), musculoskeletal disorders (9.9%), neurological disorders (8.0%), and sense organ diseases (6.2%).

• This requires strengthen of services such as mental health interventions, physiotherapy, optometry and audiology as well as linkages from major disease clusters such as HIV to rehabilitation services.

Keywords:

• Disability
• functional limitations
• Global Burden of Disease study
• DALYs
• prevalence

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the Global Burden of Disease study team for making this data publicly available.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).