The Global Burden of Disease Epidemiology—When Big Data Impute the Nonexistent

Child and adolescent psychiatry epidemiology is one of the most historically researched subfields of psychiatry, with an increased interest in using evidence synthesis and large datasets to determine the incidence and prevalence of mental health conditions and the impact they have on societies and individuals. This is exemplified by research based on Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study data, which provide the incidence, prevalence, and health economic measures of the burden of disease globally. Initially, GBD 2010 calculated the burden of disease for 291 causes across 187 countries,¹ conducting systematic reviews of the epidemiological characteristics of mental disorders across all ages and countries. Its last iteration claims to provide outcomes for 13 mental disorders (ie, major depressive disorders, dysthymia, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, alcohol use disorders, drug use disorders, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders, conduct disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], idiopathic intellectual disability, and other mental and behavioral disorders), expanding its geographic scope to include 204 countries and territories between 1990 and 2019. The results of this research often influence policies and are used to plan health services for children and young people worldwide. Thus, inaccurate or uncertain estimates can lead to inefficient or ineffective health service planning and management, poor understanding of disease patterns, inadequate access to services, or services of poor quality, all of which are detrimental to individual and population health.²