Characterising acute and chronic care needs: insights from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

GBD 2019 Acute and Chronic Care Collaborators, Cecilia Anza-Ramirez, J. Jaime Miranda, Benedetta Armocida, Jorge César Correia, Harriette Gillian Christine Van Spall, David Beran, Amirali Aali, Kalkidan Hassen Abate, Semagn Mekonnen Abate

177 more authors

Cristiana Abbafati, Mohsen Abbasi-Kangevari, Zeinab Abbasi-Kangevari, Hedayat Abbastabar, Ahmed M. Abdel-Azeem, Michael Abdelmasseh, Sherief Abd-Elsalam, Ahmed Abdelwahab, Gholamreza Abdoli, Mohammad Reza Abdollahi, Meriem Abdoun, Deldar Morad Abdulah, Abu Yousuf Md Abdullah, Ame Mehadi Abdurehman, Getachew Abebe, Aidin Abedi, Vida Abedi, Hassan Abidi, Richard Gyan Aboagye, Hassan Abolhassani, Lucas Guimarães Abreu, Michael R. M. Abrigo, Yonas Derso Abtew, Hiwa Abubaker Ali, Eman Abu-Gharbieh, Ahmed Abu-Zaid, Manfred Accrombessi, Juan Manuel Acuna, Denberu Eshetie Adane, Tigist Demssew Adane, Isaac Yeboah Addo, Giovanni Addolorato, Oluwafemi Adeagbo, Victor Adekanmbi, Miracle Ayomikun Adesina, Olatunji O. Adetokunboh, Daniel Adedayo Adeyinka, Qorinah Estiningtyas Sakilah Adnani, Aanuoluwapo Adeyimika Afolabi, Muhammad Sohail Afzal, Saira Afzal, Gina Agarwal, Prerna Agarwal, Pradyumna Agasthi, Anurag Agrawal, Marcela Agudelo-Botero, Bright Opoku Ahinkorah, Aqeel Ahmad, Sajjad Ahmad, Sohail Ahmad, Tauseef Ahmad, Ali Ahmadi, Keivan Ahmadi, Sepideh Ahmadi, Ali Ahmed, Ayman Ahmed, Haroon Ahmed, Jivan Qasim Ahmed, Luai A. Ahmed, Janardhana P Aithala, Marjan Ajami, Budi Aji, Hossein Akbarialiabad, Yibeltal Akelew, Meisam Akhlaghdoust, Addis Aklilu, Maxwell Akonde, Hanadi Al Hamad, Fares Alahdab, Ziyad Al-Aly, Khurshid Alam, Manjurul Alam, Nazmul Alam, Samiah Alam, Fahad Mashhour Alanezi, Turki M Alanzi, Jacqueline Elizabeth Alcalde-Rabanal, Astawus Alemayehu, Birhanu Alamirew Alamirew Alemu, Kefyalew Addis Alene, Abdelazeem Mohamed Algammal, Khalid F. Alhabib, Noora Alhajri, Mohammed Khaled Al‐Hanawi, Robert Kaba Alhassan, Liaqat Ali, Muhammad Ali, Syed Shujait Ali, Shohreh Alian Samakkhah, Gianfranco Alicandro, Habib Benzian, Jefferson Antonio Buendía, Nelsensius Klau Fauk, Khurshid Alam, François Alla, Nelson Alvis‐Guzmán, Till Bärnighausen, Graeme J. Hankey, Yousef Saleh Khader, Jagdish Khubchandani, Shai Linn, Azmeraw T. Amare, Abdulaal Chitheer, Rajiv Chowdhury, Alessandra Carvalho Goulart, Mohsen Abbasi‐Kangevari, Tauseef Ahmad, Anayochukwu Edward Anyasodor, Prince Atorkey, Saeed Bahadory, Jennifer L. Baker, Francesco Barone‐Adesi, Amadou Barrow, Uzma Iqbal Belgaumi, Akshaya Srikanth Bhagavathula, Nikha Bhardwaj, Sonu M. M. Bhaskar, Erkin Mirsaidovich Mirrakhimov, Saira Afzal, Syed Shujait Ali, Muhammad Badar, Ovidiu Constantin Baltatu, Luı́s Belo, Atte Meretoja, Shafiu Mohammed, Roman Topór-Mądry, Ravi Prasad Varma, Vijay Kumar Chattu, Aqeel Ahmad, Razique Anwer, Alok Atreya, Abdul-Monim Mohammad Batiha, Sheikh Mohammad Alif, Dickson Abanimi Amugsi, Navid Rabiee, Mohammed Almalki, Tarek Tawfik Amin, Sohrab Amiri, Demelash B. Areda, Khalid A Altirkawi, Atif Amin Baig, Palash Chandra Banik, Suraj Bhattarai, Raffaele Pezzani, Amit Goel, Anurag Agrawal, Ester Cerin, Mpiko Ntsekhe, Liesl Joanna Zuhlke, Luai Awad Ahmed, Nasser Bagheri, Dinh‐Toi Chu, Omid Dadras, Michael Ekholuenetale, Adeniyi Francis Fagbamigbe, Ginenus Fekadu, Sapna Gupta, Asif Hanif, Amr Hassan, Kamal Hezam, Jae Il Shin, Ganiyu Amusa, Kurnia Dwi Artanti, Mohammad Athar, Diana Fernanda Bejarano Ramírez, Patrick R Ching, Ferry Efendi, Bruno Ramos Nascimento, Francisco Rogerlândio Martins‐Melo, Nelson J Alvis-Zakzuk, Temitope Cyrus Ekundayo, Olayinka Stephen Ilesanmi, KM Shivakumar, Vivekanand Jha, Babak Eshrati, Mohammed Kuddus, Alexander G. Mathioudakis

Nature Communications, 2025

Full text Open access: Gold Metadata (CSL-JSON)
DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-56910-x
Data confidence 85 high
How this score is calculated

It is built from checkable properties of the record itself: whether the article has a DOI, how many independent sources confirmed its data, whether the required fields are filled in, and how recent the latest confirmation is. Disagreement between sources and a missing identifier lower it. A value of 80 or above means the record was published without further checking; 60 to 79 means it is published at reduced confidence, with a manual check advisable. A record verified by an editor by hand is never pushed below 90 by a recalculation. This scores our data about the article, not the article itself.

Abstract

Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care addresses short-term conditions. Chronic conditions increasingly strain health systems, which are often unprepared for these demands. This study examines the burden of conditions requiring acute versus chronic care, including sequelae. Conditions and sequelae from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2019 were classified into acute or chronic care categories. Data were analysed by age, sex, and socio-demographic index, presenting total numbers and contributions to burden metrics such as Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), Years Lived with Disability (YLD), and Years of Life Lost (YLL). Approximately 68% of DALYs were attributed to chronic care, while 27% were due to acute care. Chronic care needs increased with age, representing 86% of YLDs and 71% of YLLs, and accounting for 93% of YLDs from sequelae. These findings highlight that chronic care needs far exceed acute care needs globally, necessitating health systems to adapt accordingly. Chronic care manages long-term, progressive conditions, while acute care handles short-term ones. Here, authors show chronic conditions account for most of the global health burden, with 68% of DALYs and 93% of YLDs attributed to chronic care needs.