Talk:Diseases

Is this list open for additions? Some suggestions: maybe include a food-related illness such as campylobacteriosis, a major form of cancer such as lung cancer, coronary heart disease, maybe one of the major forms of epilepsy and a genetic disease like cystic fibrosis. JWSchmidt 02:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this list is open for additions, do you think we should focus on the top diseases or just add them according to interest? vishal 12:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe there is a way to do both. It seems sensible to start by emphasizing "top diseases". I wonder if you have decided on a way to judge what the top diseases are. One body of work that tries to take a global approach is the WHO Global Burden of Disease Project. In the interest of attracting participants, it might also be fruitful to have a list of disease categories and try to start a page for one of the high incidence diseases in each major category. For example, when I looked at the list for 20 Starter Articles, I saw nothing in the cancer category, so I suggested a major type of cancer (lung cancer), which might now be number one globally. Similarly, diarrheal diseases are a major category and campylobacteriosis came to mind, but I'm not sure how it ranks globally in terms of incidence. "Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities" is a major WHO disease category, but no individual genetic disease would make a top 20 list for disease incidence. Still, it seems like it would be useful to select one relatively high incidence genetic disease as an example for that category. The relevance of cystic fibrosis is biased towards people of a northern European genetic background. JWSchmidt 16:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)