Epic Measures

February 16, 2015
Science writer Smith (Growing a Garden City) deftly blends the biography of remarkable doctor and economist Christopher Murray with a history of his greatest public health project: the Global Burden of Disease studies that chart “the entire burden of disease for every place and every person on Earth.” Smith notes the life events that put Murray on the path to his groundbreaking study: a childhood fascination with maps; family travels to Africa, where his parents ran a small hospital; a stellar academic career at Harvard; a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford; a bitter experience at the World Health Organization; and a lifelong collaboration with health statistician Alan Lopez on creating the Global Burden formula and conducting fascinating studies. Funding from billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates helped launch the Global Burden project, and in 2012, a successful “prepublication presentation” was made in Seattle. Smith’s thoughtful, data-dense material is ideal for students of public health policy, who will appreciate why one public health specialist called Murray and Lopez’s work “epic squared,” but he also makes Murray’s relentless search for a way to understand the human health condition into an inspirational tale for everyone. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary Agency.

January 15, 2015
Smith (Growing a Garden City, 2010) a freelance journalist who covers health and environmental issues for Discover, the Chicago Tribune and other leading publications, chronicles an ambitious project to collect comparative data on global health issues.In 2013, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation-sponsored and funded by the Gates Foundation-issued its groundbreaking report on world health, The Global Burden of Disease, a "meticulous decades-long creation...measuring the impact of 235 causes of death, 289 diseases and injuries, and 67 risk factors for men and women in 20 age groups." The author compares the study to the Human Genome Project in its scope and potential benefits, and he identifies the impacts of health issues and available treatments on the duration and quality of life. Smith profiles the vision of director Christopher Murray, a man with a powerful desire to revolutionize the treatment of health on a global scale. Murray's passion began with summers spent assisting his parents in the operation of a mobile hospital in the African desert. Smith's formal education in health issues began in the 1980s, when he studied biology at Harvard and earned a medical degree. He also received a doctorate in international health economics from Oxford. In 1998, he became the director of a short-lived World Health Organization project to issue an independent, evidence-based report on world health, a report that was a predecessor of the 2013 study. Murray was struck by the conflicting data from international health agencies on global life expectancy, infant mortality, the incidence of chronic disease and more. The boy who had seen poverty firsthand in Africa became a man with a mission "to measure how we sicken and die in order to improve how we live." A fascinating account of a charismatic visionary who successfully battles the convoluted politics of international health bureaucracies.

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March 15, 2015
Imagine the challenge of tabulating almost everything wrong with everyone everywhere. In 147 of 192 countries, dependable death certificates are nonexistent. So obtaining oodles of information about what makes people sick, what disables them, and what they die from is a Herculean task. The Global Burden of Disease project is a spectacular achievement that measures just how people worldwide sicken and die. That data offers valuable insights into how populations can live better and longer. As of 2010, the world's top causes of total years of healthy life lost (ischemic heart disease, lower-respiratory infections, stroke, diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS), greatest causes of healthy life lost to disability (low back pain, major depressive disorders, iron-deficiency anemia, neck pain, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and highest risk factors for years of healthy life lost (high blood pressure, tobacco smoking, alcohol use, household air pollution, diet low in fruit) are now more accurately identified. Physician and economist Christopher Murray, founder of the Global Burden of Disease project, is profiled along with other contributors. An impressive account of medicine and statistics, epidemiology and global health.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)