The Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP) is an ongoing project that aims to determine priorities for disease control across the world, particularly in low-income countries. The project is most well known for the second edition of the report Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (published in 2006, often abbreviated as DCP2 and sometimes referred to as "the DCP2 Report").
Contents
The Disease Control Priorities Project is a joint enterprise of a number of groups, including the University of Washington Department of Global Health, the World Bank, the Fogarty International Center (National Institutes of Health), World Health Organization, Population Reference Bureau, Gates Foundation, and the International Decision Support Initiative. Notable editors involved in the project include Dean Jamison, Alan Lopez, Colin Mathers, Christopher J.L. Murray, George Alleyne, Prabhat Jha, and Anne Mills.
DCP1
The first edition of Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, commonly referred to as DCP1, was published in 1993. DCP1 is cited in the 1993 World Development Report.
DCP1 is organized into five parts:
Each part has chapters within it; there are 29 chapters in all. The report spans more than 700 pages and has as contributors 79 authors in addition to the four editors.
DCP2
The second edition of Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, commonly referred to as DCP2 and sometimes referred to as "the DCP2 Report", was published in 2006. DCP2 is organized into 73 chapters, and is a 1400-page report by more than 350 specialists around the world with the goal of providing policy recommendations to reduce global disease burdens. The report is in English, but translations for some of the chapters to Arabic, Chinese, French, and Spanish are available. The report has been released under the Creative Commons attribution license (CC-BY) and a copy of DCP2 can be downloaded from the World Bank's Open Knowledge Repository. The full text of the report can also be read online on the National Center for Biotechnology Information (National Institutes of Health) website.
In comparison to DCP1, DCP2 is more systematic in its coverage.
Reception
Charity evaluator GiveWell published a blog post in September 2011 cataloguing what they perceived to be errors in the cost-effectiveness estimates for deworming in DCP2. GiveWell asserted that the error caused the cost per DALY averted to be under-stated by a factor of 100: instead of a quoted figure of about $3.36–$6.92 per DALY, the actual figure based on the calculations used should have been $336–$692 per DALY. GiveWell's blog post was picked up by statistician Andrew Gelman on his personal blog as well as by others. GiveWell also did a follow-up post arguing against over-investment in cost-effectiveness estimates.
Giving What We Can, an effective giving advocacy group and charity evaluator, lists DCP2 as one of its main sources in evaluating the cost-effectiveness of health-related interventions in low-income countries. In late 2012, Giving What We Can published a two-post series discussing the effectiveness and impact of the Disease Control Priorities Project and DCP2 in particular.
DCP3
For third edition, the name of the report was shortened to Disease Control Priorities. The third edition is commonly referred to as DCP3, and is under preparation and is expected to be published over the time period 2015–2016. It has nine separate volumes. The final and summary volume will be published in 2016. Separate volumes on cancer and surgery will be published earlier. Toby Ord of Giving What We Can is on the board.
As of April 2016, four of nine volumes of DCP3 have been published online.
The nine volumes are as follows:
Other publications
In addition to DCP1, DCP2, and DCP3, the DCPP has produced other background papers and major publications. These include the following: