The Unseen Global Burden of Disease

Abstract

Due to geographic-specific patient and institutional-related barriers to care, data extrapolation and expert opinion on global burden of disease in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery may under- or overestimate the presence and effect of common head and neck conditions. The group of conditions that fail to present to local physicians and/or missed in data extrapolation methods is the unseen burden of disease. This article presents opinions from otolaryngology-head and neck surgery physicians in high- and low/middle-income countries to help explain the contributing factors and ultimately how to use this unseen burden of disease.

Keywords: disease burden; global medicine; global surgery; unseen burden.