The Lancet in the context of "Disease burden"

The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and Israel, fought as part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflicts. The war began on 7 October 2023, when the Palestinian militant group Hamas led a surprise attack on Israel, in which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed and 251 were taken hostage. Since the start of the Israeli offensive that followed, over 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, almost half of them women and children, and more than 170,000 injured. A study in The Lancet estimated that traumatic injury deaths were undercounted and noting a potentially larger death toll when "indirect" deaths are included.

After clearing militants from its territory, Israel launched a bombing campaign and invaded Gaza on 27 October. The Israeli Defense Forces launched numerous campaigns, including the Rafah offensive from May, three battles fought around Khan Yunis, and the siege of North Gaza from October, culminating in a 2025 offensive in Gaza City; and have assassinated Hamas leaders in and outside Gaza. A temporary ceasefire in November 2023 broke down, and a second ceasefire in January 2025 ended with a surprise attack by Israel in March. A third ceasefire came into effect on 10 October after Israel and Hamas agreed to phase one of a US-backed peace plan. On 19 October, after alleged Hamas violations, Israel briefly resumed bombing Gaza before reaffirming the ceasefire the same day, doing the same on 28 October.

Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. Herd immunity protects those who may be immunocompromised and cannot get a vaccine because even a weakened version would harm them.

The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified. Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases; widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccination prevents 3.5–5 million deaths per year. A WHO-funded study by The Lancet estimates that, during the 50-year period starting in 1974, vaccination prevented 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children under age 5. However, some diseases have seen rising cases due to relatively low vaccination rates attributable partly to vaccine hesitancy.

Gastric bypass surgery refers to a technique in which the stomach is divided into a small upper pouch and a much larger lower "remnant" pouch, where the small intestine is rearranged to connect to both. Surgeons have developed several different ways to reconnect the intestine, thus leading to several different gastric bypass procedures (GBP). Any GBP leads to a marked reduction in the functional volume of the stomach, accompanied by an altered physiological and physical response to food.

The operation is prescribed to treat severe obesity (defined as a body mass index greater than 40), type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, and other comorbid conditions. Bariatric surgery is the term encompassing all of the surgical treatments for severe obesity, not just gastric bypasses, which make up only one class of such operations. The resulting weight loss, typically dramatic, markedly reduces comorbidities. The long-term mortality rate of gastric bypass patients has been shown to be reduced by up to 40%. As with all surgery, complications may occur. A study from 2005 to 2006 revealed that 15% of patients experienced complications as a result of gastric bypass, and 0.5% of patients died within six months of surgery due to complications. A meta-analysis of 174,772 participants published in The Lancet in 2021 found that bariatric surgery was associated with 59% and 30% reduction in all-cause mortality among obese adults with or without type 2 diabetes respectively. This meta-analysis also found that median life-expectancy was 9.3 years longer for obese adults with diabetes who received bariatric surgery as compared to routine (non-surgical) care, whereas the life expectancy gain was 5.1 years longer for obese adults without diabetes.

The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip is a major part of the Gaza war. Starting on 7 October 2023, immediately after the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel began bombing the Gaza Strip. On 13 October, Israel began ground operations in the Gaza Strip, and on 27 October, a full-scale invasion was launched. Israel's campaign has four stated goals: to destroy Hamas, to free the hostages, to ensure Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israel, and to return displaced residents of Northern Israel. More than a year after the invasion, fighting in the Gaza Strip halted for two months with the implementation of a ceasefire on 19 January 2025. Another ceasefire went into effect in October 2025, as phase 1 of a multi-phase peace plan.

By April 2025, the Gaza Ministry of Health had reported that at least 50,500 people in the Gaza Strip had died—1 out of every 44 people—averaging 93 deaths per day. Most of the victims are civilians, of whom at least half are women and children. In October 2025, the Gaza Ministry of Health stated that more than 68,500 people have been killed since the war began. Compared to other recent global conflicts, the numbers of known deaths of journalists, humanitarian and health workers, and children are among the highest. Thousands of more dead bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings. A study in The Lancet estimated 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries by June 2024, while noting a larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included. As of January 2025, a comparable estimate for traumatic injury deaths would be around 80,000. The number of injured is greater than 100,000; Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world. On 22 October 2025, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor released a report stating that in the Gaza strip "more than 270,000 people, around 12 per cent of the population, have been killed, injured, or detained since 7 October 2023".

John P. A. Ioannidis (/ˌiːəˈniːdɪs/ EE-ə-NEE-diss; Greek: Ιωάννης Ιωαννίδης, pronounced [i.oˈanis i.oaˈniðis]; born August 21, 1965) is a Greek-American physician-scientist, writer and Stanford University professor who has made contributions to evidence-based medicine, epidemiology, and clinical research. Ioannidis studies scientific research itself – in other words, meta-research – primarily in clinical medicine and the social sciences.

He has served on the editorial board of over twenty scientific journals including Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) and The Lancet.

Christopher J. L. Murray (born August 16, 1962) is an American physician and economist serving as Professor and Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a public health research institute best known for publishing the Global Burden of Disease Study. Prior to joining the University of Washington, Murray was the Richard Saltonstall Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Murray also served as Executive Director of the Evidence and Information for Policy Cluster at the World Health Organization, where he served under Gro Harlem Brundtland.

Alongside collaborators such as Alan Lopez and Julio Frenk, Murray is best known for creating the Global Burden of Disease Study, an international effort to catalog the causes of death and disability worldwide. Beginning with the 1993 World Development Report, Murray and his collaborators published several iterations of the Global Burden, culminating in a December 2012 edition of The Lancet featuring only research and commentary from Murray and his collaborators.