WhiteBook2_Part2 - 9

Methods
The results by digestive disorder underwent further analysis to examine the extent to which
research activity was aligned with disease burden as measured by Disability-Adjusted Life
Years (DALYs). A DALY is a measure of the overall burden of a disease, combining the years of
life lost due to premature mortality and the years of healthy life lost due to disability.13 DALYs
can therefore be used to compare the burden of a wide range of disorders, from lifethreatening
to those which predominantly cause disability. The global number of DALYs per
disorder in 2019 were extracted from the publicly available Global Burden of Disease Study
(GBD) 2019 database.14 GBD 2019 uses highly standardised and systematic methods to
estimate disease burden metrics in 204 countries and territories.15 DALY estimates were not
available for irritable bowel syndrome, dyspepsia, eosinophilic oesophagitis or coeliac
disease, hence publication output in relation to burden was not estimated for these diseases.
Since higher income countries tend to produce more research publications compared to
lower income countries, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to compare digestive disease
global publication output with disease burden in the EU.
European Commission funding for digestive disease research (Horizon 2020)
Analysis of Horizon 2020 funded research projects was performed to identify and quantify
European Commission funding for digestive disease research. We examined how patterns of
funding for digestive disease research related to differences in the burden of disease in
Europe, and how this compared to funding granted for other diseases.
Horizon 2020 is an EU research programme which ran from 2014 to 2020. With available
funds of nearly €80 billion, the programme aimed to enhance innovation in science and
encourage public-private partnerships, with the ultimate goal of driving economic growth in
Europe.16 During the first four years of the programme, the European Commission aimed to
invest more than €2 billion in health research.16 Details about funded projects are publicly
available via the CORDIS database,17 including project abstracts (otherwise known as
objectives), European Commission funding contributions and fields of science categories
based on the European Science Vocabulary (EuroSciVoc). The EuroSciVoc is a taxonomy of
fields of science based on OECD's 2015 Frascati Manual taxonomy, and was extended with
fields of science categories extracted from CORDIS content.18 Fields of science are
hierarchically organised, from broad research areas (e.g., medical and health sciences) to
specific subjects, such as individual diseases.
Horizon 2020 project data were downloaded from the CORDIS database in December 2021,
and over 90% of the projects were classified with at least one EuroSciVoc field of science
category (which could include one or more disease specific fields). A search strategy was
developed to identify research projects related to digestive and non-digestive diseases from
White Book 2: Part 2
6
WhiteBook2_Part2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of WhiteBook2_Part2
