Rare Diseases

  Research on the burden of disease is one of the few types of public health research that strongly encourages public health action. This study employs accepted metrics to estimate actual or possible losses that populations may incur as a result of illnesses and accidents. Standard measurements might be straightforward (like mortality) or complex. The burden of disease has been calculated for roughly 300 disorders that affect millions of people worldwide, despite some limitations in the quantity and quality of data at a global level. This was done in order to inform the development of public health policy and the design of health systems. However, these initiatives have mostly focused on relatively common illnesses and only a few uncommon diseases that fall under the category of " congenital abnormalities ." In general, a disease is deemed rare when it affects fewer than 7 people out of 10,000 in a given community, although there is no universally accepted definition of wh