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. This seminal study was led by Dr. Mark Litwin, UDA Principal Investigator, and Dr. Christopher Saigal, UDA Co-Principal Investigator, and 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. The UCLA study was renewed through 2012 with an additional award of $9.25 million.

 

Urologic diseases include conditions that are congenital and acquired, cancerous and non-cancerous. The study focused on urologic cancers of the prostate, bladder, testicular and kidney, but also examined high-profile disorders such as male sexual dysfunction and urinary incontinence. At the time of the study, Americans spent 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 launched a website that included an interactive version of the Compendium that allowed users to access data from hundreds of tables and charts to customize their own charts, figures, and tables for presentation. The site was part of the UDA project, seeking to increase the general understanding of the burden of urologic diseases in both human and financial terms.