October 29, 2009
Preventable death study wins best medical paper competition
By William Heisel
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
A study by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the UW and Harvard University has been named the best open-access medical paper of the past five years by the journal PLoS Medicine.
On Sept. 10, the journal selected five finalists for the award and invited readers to vote by Oct. 15. The team responsible for the winning research — including Goodarz Danaei and Majid Ezzati of Harvard, Dr. Christopher Murray of IHME, and others — brought to light the astonishing number of deaths in the United States attributable to preventable risk factors such as smoking, unhealthy eating and high blood pressure.
The paper, “The Preventable Causes of Death in the United States: Comparative Risk Assessment of Dietary, Lifestyle, and Metabolic Risk Factors,” was published April 28, 2009 in PLoS Medicine.
Read more about the competition here.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent global research center at the University of Washington providing sound measurement of population health and the factors that determine health, as well as rigorous evaluation of health system and health program performance. The Institute’s ultimate goal is to improve population health by providing the best evidence possible to guide health policy — and by making that evidence easily accessible to decision-makers, as they strategically fund, design, and implement programs to improve health outcomes worldwide. IHME was created in 2007 through funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the state of Washington.
