Report of the Second meeting of the European Burden of Disease Network (EBoDN)

23–24 August 2017, Oslo, Norway

The second meeting of the European Burden of Disease Network (EBoDN) was convened by the WHO Regional Office for Europe on 23–24 August 2017 in Oslo, Norway, and hosted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. A range of national and international burden of disease (BoD) experts from Europe and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) attended the meeting. The purpose of the second meeting was to further enhance collaboration; to discuss and agree on development of the BoD manual; and to facilitate effective knowledge exchange between experts in the field. Considerable progress has been made since the first meeting: a draft of the BoD manual has been produced; an editorial on the formation of the EBoDN has been published in the European journal of public health; several
countries have managed to produce subnational BoD estimates; and IHME has secured funding for the next 10 years. However, participants also described various challenges facing those undertaking BoD studies, including capacity and funding, engagement from stakeholders, and access to high-quality data. The next steps will be to continue collaboration and knowledge transfer between countries, to expand the network in breadth and depth, and to finalize the BoD manual. A work plan for the next year was agreed to realize these aims.