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. 2020 Jul;146(1):e20192623.
doi: 10.1542/peds.2019-2623. Epub 2020 Jun 17.

Global Burden of Childhood Epilepsy, Intellectual Disability, and Sensory Impairments

Bolajoko O Olusanya  1 , Scott M Wright  2 , M K C Nair  3 , Nem-Yun Boo  4 , Ricardo Halpern  5 , Hannah Kuper  6 , Amina A Abubakar  7 , Nihad A Almasri  8 , Jalal Arabloo  9 , Narendra K Arora  10 , Sophia Backhaus  11 , Brad D Berman  12   13 , Cecilia Breinbauer  14 , Gwen Carr  15 , Petrus J de Vries  16 , Christie Del Castillo-Hegyi  17   18 , Aziz Eftekhari  19 , Melissa J Gladstone  20 , Rosa A Hoekstra  21 , Vijaya Kancherla  22 , Mphelekedzeni C Mulaudzi  23 , Angelina Kakooza-Mwesige  24 , Felix A Ogbo  25 , Helen E Olsen  26 , Jacob O Olusanya  1 , Ashok Pandey  27 , Maureen E Samms-Vaughan  28 , Chiara Servili  29 , Amira Shaheen  30 , Tracey Smythe  6 , Donald Wertlieb  31 , Andrew N Williams  32 , Charles R J Newton  7 , Adrian C Davis  15 , Nicholas J Kassebaum  33 ; Global Research on Developmental Disabilities Collaborators (GRDDC)
Affiliations

Global Burden of Childhood Epilepsy, Intellectual Disability, and Sensory Impairments

Bolajoko O Olusanya et al. Pediatrics. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Estimates of children and adolescents with disabilities worldwide are needed to inform global intervention under the disability-inclusive provisions of the Sustainable Development Goals. We sought to update the most widely reported estimate of 93 million children <15 years with disabilities from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2004.

Methods: We analyzed Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 data on the prevalence of childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, and vision or hearing loss and on years lived with disability (YLD) derived from systematic reviews, health surveys, hospital and claims databases, cohort studies, and disease-specific registries. Point estimates of the prevalence and YLD and the 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) around the estimates were assessed.

Results: Globally, 291.2 million (11.2%) of the 2.6 billion children and adolescents (95% UI: 249.9-335.4 million) were estimated to have 1 of the 4 specified disabilities in 2017. The prevalence of these disabilities increased with age from 6.1% among children aged <1 year to 13.9% among adolescents aged 15 to 19 years. A total of 275.2 million (94.5%) lived in low- and middle-income countries, predominantly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The top 10 countries accounted for 62.3% of all children and adolescents with disabilities. These disabilities accounted for 28.9 million YLD or 19.9% of the overall 145.3 million (95% UI: 106.9-189.7) YLD from all causes among children and adolescents.

Conclusions: The number of children and adolescents with these 4 disabilities is far higher than the 2004 estimate, increases from infancy to adolescence, and accounts for a substantial proportion of all-cause YLD.

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Conflict of interest statement

POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The authors have indicated they have no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Global age-specific prevalence of and YLD for childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, hearing loss and vision loss in 2017.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Regional prevalence of and YLD for childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, hearing loss and vision loss in 2017.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Regional ranking of childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, hearing loss, and vision loss by severity among children and adolescents based on estimates of prevalence and YLD in 2017. Colors correspond to the ranking of disability by severity, with dark red indicating the most common disability and dark green indicating the least common disability for the location indicated. The numbers inside each box indicate the ranking.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Global distribution of childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, hearing loss and vision loss in 2017.
A, Epilepsy, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000. B, Developmental intellectual disability, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000. C, Hearing loss, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000. D, Blindness and vision impairment, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Global distribution of childhood epilepsy, intellectual disability, hearing loss and vision loss in 2017.
A, Epilepsy, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000. B, Developmental intellectual disability, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000. C, Hearing loss, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000. D, Blindness and vision impairment, both sexes, <20 years, 2017, prevalent cases per 100 000.
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