Causes of sickle cell anaemia

Background Previous global analyses, with known underdiagnosis and single cause per death attribution systems, provide only a small insight into the suspected high population health effect of sickle cell disease.

Completed as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) , this study delivers a comprehensive global assessment of prevalence of sickle cell disease and mortality burden by age and sex for countries and territories from to Methods We estimated cause-specific sickle cell disease mortality using standardised GBD approaches, in which each death is assigned to a single underlying cause, to estimate mortality rates from the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-coded vital registration, surveillance, and verbal autopsy data.

In parallel, our goal was to estimate a more accurate account of sickle cell disease health burden using four types of epidemiological data on sickle cell disease: birth incidence, age-specific pr