Current and future burden of communicable diseases in the European Union and EEA/EFTA countries (BCoDE) : methodology protocol

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has a responsibility to identify, assess and communicate current and emerging threats to human health from communicable diseases. Surveillance data follow trends in time and indicate health problems resulting from particular diseases, but are subject to underreporting and do not account for disease severity. To increase insight into the impact of communicable diseases on population health in Europe and to support health policy-making, in 2008 ECDC initiated a call to develop a methodology for measuring the current and future burden of communicable diseases in the European Union Member States and European Economic Area (EEA)/European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries. The result was the current and future Burden of Communicable Disease (BCoDE) project. The current protocol is the output of Work Package 1 of the BCoDE project. Choices concerning the methodology of future disease burden estimates were taken on the basis of literature reviews, data reviews and the results of workshops/expert meetings. These are summarised in the current protocol.