Urologic Diseases in America
The Urologic Diseases in America (UDA) project began in 2001 when researchers from UCLA and RAND Health received a $6.9 million grant to spearhead a first-of-its-kind study to document the impact of urologic diseases on the public. The study resulted in the UDA Compendium, a comprehensive guide to the risk factors, prevalence, treatment types and utilization trends for urologic diseases affecting men, women and children. UDA is sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health, and has been renewed through 2012 for an additional $9.25 million.
Urologic diseases include conditions that are congenital and acquired, cancerous and non-cancerous. “The study focuses on urologic cancers of the prostate, bladder, testicular and kidney, but also examines high-profile disorders such as male sexual dysfunction and urinary incontinence,” said Dr. Christopher Saigal, UCLA Associate Professor of Urology and UDA Co-Principal Investigator. Americans spend nearly $11 billion annually on medical care for urologic diseases, including visits to office-based physicians and hospital outpatient clinics, visits to emergency rooms and hospital stays, according to the project.
The UCLA team has launched a website that includes an interactive version of the Compendium that allows users to access data from hundreds of tables and charts to customize their own charts, figures, and tables for presentation. The site is part of the UDA project, which seeks to increase the general understanding of the burden of urologic diseases in both human and financial terms.
“This is an innovative web site that provides access to data that hasn’t been gathered in one location before,” said Dr. Mark Litwin, UCLA Chair of Urology and Professor of Health Services, who is principal investigator on the eleven-year study. “The information is easy to access, user-friendly and is open to anyone who wants to use it. It is the premier site for epidemiological information on urologic diseases.”
UDA Online also includes conference presentations on UDA findings and a list of publications developed through the many collaborative analyses that the project supports.