A Heavy Burden: the occurrence and impact of musculoskeletal conditions in the United Kingdom today.

The Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit acts as a source of information on the burden of musculoskeletal disease to academics, the medical profession, patients and the general public. In recent years we have received increasing numbers of requests for data on the incidence, prevalence and costs of musculoskeletal conditions in the UK. The epidemiological data required are widely scattered in published studies, surveys and Government reports. Thepresent report arose from the desire to collate all the available epidemiological data and to provide a template that could be used to estimate the number of sufferers amongst any section of the population, such as a GP patient list, with known age and gender breakdown.The first two editions of this report, the last of which was published in 2002, have proved very popular. This edition aims to build on the previous two, by including economic and mortality information, in addition to providing an update based on the most recently available data.