Morbidity
What is morbidity?
Morbidity is a public health indicator that measures the proportion of people who have a disease or health problem in a given place and period of time. Unlike mortality, which measures how many people die, morbidity reflects how much a population becomes ill.
Morbidity does not only mean “being ill”
In epidemiology, the term morbidity encompasses any alteration in health status, whether it is an acute disease, a chronic disease, an injury or a disability resulting from a health problem. Therefore, it does not refer only to being ill, but also to the impact that diseases have on a community.
How is morbidity measured?
Morbidity is quantified using different epidemiological indicators, which make it possible to determine how frequently a disease occurs and how many people have it in a population. The two most commonly used are:
- Incidence: the number of new cases of a disease that occur in a population over a given period.
- Prevalence: the total number of people living with a disease at a specific point in time or over a given period.
What is the difference between morbidity and mortality?
Although they often appear together, morbidity and mortality describe different aspects of population health. Morbidity refers to the frequency or burden of diseases and other health problems, whereas mortality refers to the deaths that occur in a population. Therefore, morbidity provides information on how many people become ill or live with a disease, while mortality indicates how many people die and from which causes.
| Morbidity | Mortality |
|---|---|
| Measures the frequency or burden of diseases and other health problems. | Measures the number of deaths in a population. |
| Indicates how many people become ill or live with a disease. | Indicates how many people die and the causes. |
| It is usually expressed through incidence and prevalence. | It is expressed through mortality rates and causes of death. |
For example, according to data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), back pain is one of the leading causes of morbidity worldwide, as it affects a large number of people and generates a high burden of disease. In contrast, ischaemic heart disease is one of the leading causes of mortality, as it is associated with a high number of deaths.
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COLLAPSE
- The European Urban Burden of Disease Project(ISGlobal)
- Steatotic Liver Disease, a Public Health Threat in Barcelona(ISGlobal, 2025)
- Global Burden of Disease (GBD)(GBD, 2023)
MULTIMEDIA MATERIAL
