Belgian National Burden of Disease Study (BeBOD)

What are the most important diseases in Belgium? Which risk factors contribute most to the overall disease burden? How is the burden of disease evolving over time, and how does it differ across the country? In a context of increasing budgetary constraints, a precise answer to these basic questions is more than ever necessary to inform policy-making.

To address this need, Sciensano is conducting a national burden of disease study. In addition to generating internally consistent estimates of death rate (mortality) or how unhealthy we are (morbidity) by age, sex and region, the estimates will also include how much of that burden can be attributed to risk factors. This can be useful for priority setting and prevention policy planning.

For more info, please visit the BeBOD project page.

  Other BeBOD visualisation tools

Estimates of the fatal and non-fatal burden of 38 key diseases

Estimates of the fatal burden of 131 causes of death

Estimates of the non-fatal burden of 57 cancer sites

BeBOD estimates of the burden of disease attributable to risk factors

Our results build on the estimates of causes of death from the Belgian National Burden of Disease Study and apply comparative risk assessment to estimate the proportion of that burden due to risk factors.

Population exposure

The attribution of disease burden to risk factors requires estimates of the level of exposure in the population.

Population attributable fraction

Based on the estimated level of exposure and the associated health risk, a population attributable fraction (PAF) is calculated. The PAF is the proportion of the disease burden that is caused by exposure to the risk factor.

Attributable burden

The burden of disease is quantified in deaths and in Years of Life Lost (YLL). To derive the burden attributable to a risk factor, its PAF is multiplied with the total observed burden.

Risk factors

Alcohol use

The prevalence of current drinkers, former drinkers, and lifetime abstainers is derived from the Belgian Health Interview Survey. Mean alcohol consumption in grams per day is sourced from the Global Health Observatory, with the BHIS distribution applied to these estimates. Bayesian regression models are used to smooth, interpolate, and extrapolate the observed estimates.

Tobacco use

The prevalence of never, former, and current smokers, the daily number of cigarettes smoked by smokers, time since quitting for former smokers, and pack-years for smokers are all derived from the Belgian Health Interview Survey. Bayesian regression models are used to smooth, interpolate, and extrapolate the observed estimates.

Explore our estimates

  Trends

Explore trends in risk factor attributable burden, by region, sex, and age.

  Patterns

Explore patterns of risk factor attributable burden, by region, sex, age, and year.

  Rankings

Rank causes of risk factor attributable burden, by region, sex, age, and year.

  Heatmap

Compare the top causes of risk factor attributable burden, across region, sex, age, or year.

  Exposure

Explore trends in risk factor exposure, by region, sex, and age.

  Results

Explore and download our estimates of attributable disease burden and risk factor exposure.

Download all estimates

All estimates can be downloaded in rds format via Zenodo:

Attributable disease burden

Exposure

Citation

Sarah Croes, Sarah Nayani, Brecht Devleesschauwer & Vanessa Gorasso. (2025). BeBOD estimates of attributable mortality and years of life lost due to alcohol and tobacco use, 2013-2021 (v2025-01-14) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14675515

Sarah Nayani, Sarah Croes, Brecht Devleesschauwer & Vanessa Gorasso. (2025). BeBOD estimates of population exposure to alcohol and tobacco use, 2013-2021 (v2025-01-14) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14675507

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.