Chapter 2: Burden by Level of Development for modelling some relationships compared to others. Nonetheless, our overall findings did not substantially change when the analysis was repeated using an alternative generalised linear model (details in Appendix). These findings highlight important differences in the burden of digestive diseases and cancers by level of human development between countries considered to be highly developed. Efforts to reduce the burden of digestive disorders which fail to account for the wider social, economic and political forces which contribute to the burden, are likely to have limited success. Further research is needed to identify specific policies which have the greatest impact on reducing the burden of digestive diseases and cancers in different countries, however multisectoral policies designed to maximise co-benefits for human development and health are likely to offer substantial health gains.121 White Book 2: Part 1 158