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. 2020 Mar;8(6):299.
doi: 10.21037/atm.2020.02.175.

Global low back pain prevalence and years lived with disability from 1990 to 2017: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Aimin Wu  1 , Lyn March  2   3 , Xuanqi Zheng  1 , Jinfeng Huang  1 , Xiangyang Wang  1 , Jie Zhao  4 , Fiona M Blyth  5 , Emma Smith  2   6 , Rachelle Buchbinder  7 , Damian Hoy  2   3
Affiliations

Global low back pain prevalence and years lived with disability from 1990 to 2017: estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Aimin Wu et al. Ann Transl Med. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is a common musculoskeletal problem globally. Updating the prevalence and burden of LBP is important for researchers and policy makers. This paper presents, compares and contextualizes the global prevalence and years lived with disability (YLDs) of LBP by age, sex and region, from 1990 to 2017.

Methods: Data were extracted from the GBD (the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study) 2017 Study. Age, sex and region-specific analyses were conducted to estimate the global prevalence and YLDs of LBP, with the uncertainty intervals (UIs).

Results: The age-standardized point prevalence of LBP was 8.20% (95% UI: 7.31-9.10%) in 1990 and decreased slightly to 7.50% (95% UI: 6.75-8.27%) in 2017. The prevalent numbers of people with LBP at any one point in time in 1990 was 377.5 million, and this increased to 577.0 million in 2017. Age-standardized prevalence of LBP was higher in females than males. LBP prevalence increased with age, and peaked around the ages of 80 to 89 years, and then decreased slightly. Global YLDs were 42.5 million (95% UI: 30.2 million-57.2 million) in 1990 and increased by 52.7% to 64.9 million (95% UI: 46.5 million-87.4 million) in 2017. YLDs were also higher in females than males and increased initially with age; they peaked at 35-39 years of age in 1990, before decreasing, whereas in 2017, they peaked at 45-49 years of age, before decreasing. Western Europe had the highest number of LBP YLDs.

Conclusions: Globally, LBP is the leading global cause of YLDs. Greater attention is urgently needed to mitigate this increasing burden and the impact it is having on health and social systems.

Keywords: Global Burden of Disease Study; Low back pain (LBP); prevalence; years lived with disability (YLDs).

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The flow chart of the YLDs estimation. Map SF-12 to GBD DW: the data were first collected from the short form-12 (SF-12), then, the individual SF-12 summary scores were mapped to an equivalent disability weight (DW); Nonfatal database: low back pain is one type of nonfatal disease, therefore, the data are input into the GBD nonfatal database; The “year” under the prevalence by location/year/age/sex represents the years 1990–2017.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The prevalence trend of low back pain. (A) The age-standardized point prevalence of low back pain from 1990 to 2017, by gender. (B) The estimated prevalent number of people with low back pain from 1990 to 2017, by gender.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The age-specific prevalence of low back pain. (A) The age-specific point prevalence of low back pain in 1990, by gender. (B) The age-specific point prevalence of low back pain in 2017, by gender.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The age-specific number of years lived with disability. (A) The age-specific number of low back pain years lived with disability (with uncertainty intervals) in 1990, by age and gender. (B) The age-specific number of low back pain years lived with disability (with uncertainty intervals) in 2017, by age and gender.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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