<p>Who is the author of Epic Measures?</p>

<p>Jeremy N. Smith is the author of Epic Measures.</p>

Health & Nutrition

Epic Measures Book Summary - Epic Measures Book explained in key points

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Epic Measures summary

Name: Epic Measures
Rating: 3.8 (17 reviews)
Author: Jeremy N. Smith

Jeremy N. Smith

One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients.

3.8 (17 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

Epic Measures by Jeremy N. Smith explores how the company known as Global Burden of Disease Study counted each and every ailment across all countries and cultures worldwide, and how this data is used to create a healthier future for everyone.

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Biographies Diseases & Illnesses

Table of Contents

Epic Measures
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Follow one man’s quest for better health data across the globe.

Imagine that you’re out searching for a bookshelf that will fit perfectly into a specific nook in your home. But there’s a problem: you don’t have that nook’s measurements. Or, even worse, you have five different sets of measurements but are unsure which, if any, is correct. How, with such poor data, could you possibly select the right shelf?

Now imagine a similar issue – slapdash data – but on a major, and majorly complex, level. Well, that’s essentially what’s plaguing global health.

It might seem unbelievable that something as important as global health was marred with bad and insufficient data, yet that’s exactly what Rhodes Scholar and PhD Christopher Murray found. This is the story of how Murray discovered the lack of reliable data regarding public health and what he did to combat it – all to get an epic measure of and clear perspective on the best ways to allocate money for improving the health of the world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why reports on longevity could differ by 10-15 years in UN data;
how having UN departments focus on specific diseases left data gaps; and
why both quality and quantity need to be measured to get a correct view of world health.

Christopher Murray’s remarkable childhood taught him important lessons about how to analyze and treat disease.

If you were lucky enough to go on a family vacation when you were ten years old, you may have engaged in pleasant leisure activities, like hiking or enjoying the sights and food of another country. Christopher Murray’s family did trips somewhat differently.

When Christopher was ten years old, his parents took him and his three older siblings on a yearlong sabbatical in Niger. This was no random trip: his father was a cardiologist; his mother, a microbiologist. The family planned to work at a hospital in the Sahara desert.

The hospital needed all the help it could get. When Christopher’s family arrived, the facility was lacking running water and electricity, not to mention staff.

Luckily, the family had brought some portable equipment with them, and Chris served as an errand boy and organized supplies. Meanwhile, his older brothers worked as nurses and aides, stitching and dressing wounds.

The family worked together to fight malaria. After noticing that more people were catching the disease in the hospital than in the villages around it, they started taking blood samples of everyone in the area and studying the health statistics of their patients and visitors to figure out what was going on.

Their research showed that the malaria outbreak had begun when the hospital started distributing vitamin supplements; tests showed that these supplements increased the iron count in patients’ blood. This led the family to the conclusion that the elevated iron levels were probably attracting parasites that thrive on the mineral, which in turn promoted infection and increased the risk of malaria.

The results were published in the prestigious medical journal Lancet. This kind of tenacious research is a perfect example of the kind of work that would stay with Christopher as he grew up, pushing him to work hard to help people.

The Murrays continued to run various mobile clinics throughout Africa and fight disease. These experiences, and the teachings of his father, showed Christopher that one of the most important skills in medicine is careful analysis.

In the 1980s, health organizations used poor and unreliable methods to measure world health.

If you had to travel around the world and measure the health of each country, what factors would you look at?

When Christopher Murray was in medical school in the 1980s, the single biggest indicator of a country’s health was the infant-mortality rate. But this is a misleading index. Though getting a child through its first year of life is important, it’s a small factor in overall health.

Health data was also skewed to justify ineffective work and funding.

As you can imagine, these methods from the 1980s are a statistician’s worst nightmare. And things weren’t much better at the World Health Organization (WHO).

At WHO, 95 percent of staff was organized into different departments based on specific diseases, and they all had tiny statistics teams.

Murray developed a better method for measuring world health by focusing on quality of life and years lost.

With his foot in the door, Murray set about inventing a new way to collect better data. His results would transform the way we look at world health.

For starters, it’s important to consider how many years are lost when someone dies.

The results of Murray’s study exposed neglected areas and earned him criticism and scorn.

With their new system in place, Murray’s team published the first Global Burden of Disease papers in 1993, using over a decade of data from every country to shed new light on what was ailing everyone, both young and old.

The scope of this work was enormous. Nearly every death in the world was accounted for, including the illnesses responsible for 90 percent of the world’s disabilities.

Pushed out of the World Health Organization, Murray formed a new institute to improve world health.

If you’ve spent time in the world of science and academia, you’ve probably heard the motto "Publish or perish.” But in bureaucracy they live by another code: "Don’t embarrass the higher-ups.”

Since WHO and the UN are governed by different member states, it was perhaps inevitable that some of these nations wouldn’t be happy with how they were evaluated and ranked in Murray’s reports.

Murray’s organization now publishes updated and easily accessible versions of the Global Burden Study.

Every year, $7 trillion dollars is spent on global health, and it is Murray’s goal to make sure this money is used in the best possible way.

This is why, in 2012, Murray’s studies began focusing on intervention and including reasons why diseases were breaking out in the first place. And once the root causes for certain diseases were identified, it was also apparent how government intervention could easily help prevent these illnesses.

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What is Epic Measures about?

Epic Measures (2015) tells the incredible story of how one man, Christopher Murray, came to build the most comprehensive medical study ever assembled. Find out what motivated Murray and his dedicated team of collaborators to build a worldwide map of every disease and illness known to man – and discover how his remarkable work has revolutionized the face of world health.

Epic Measures Review

Epic Measures (2015) is a captivating exploration of an ambitious project that aimed to measure the health of every person on the planet. Here's why this book is worth reading:

With fascinating stories of the challenges and triumphs encountered along the way, it provides a unique glimpse into the world of global health and data collection.
Through meticulous research and interviews, the book offers valuable insights into the impact of disease on society and the efforts to improve healthcare worldwide.
By highlighting the passionate individuals who dedicated their lives to this massive undertaking, the book's narrative brings a human element to an otherwise complex subject.

Best quote from Epic Measures

What you dont know can kill you.

—Jeremy N. Smith

Who should read Epic Measures?

Medical students
Readers working in the health sector
Humanitarians

About the Author

Jeremy N. Smith is a freelance writer and journalist. His work has appeared in the Atlantic, Discover and the New York Times. He is also the author of the book Growing a Garden City, which provides insight into how communities can be built through local gardens and farms.

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Health & Nutrition Biography & Memoir

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