Disability-adjusted life year

The most commonly used measure of utility in the health economics literature is the quality-adjusted life year (QALY), which weights longevity by life quality. The most commonly used preference-weighted measure of health-related quality of life in the UK is the EuroQol or EQ-5D (EuroQpl Group, 1990), but there are various other such measures. Utility scores can now be obtained from the 36-item Short Form (SF-36) quality-of-life scale, for example. Also in use are healthy-year equivalents (Mehrez and Gafni, 1989) and disability-adjusted life years (WHO, 2000), although both these measures are different in aim and construction from the QALY and are used less often in evaluations. 

Depression is a common, serious, sometimes fatal illness that is chronic and recurrent in nature, impairs family life, reduces social adjustment, and is a burden on the community (Klerman and Weissman, 1992). This disease chronicity magnifies hoth its societal impact and its economic burden. It has been estimated that more than 17% of the disability associated with mental disorders is the result of depressive disorders (Rosenbaum and Hylan, 1999), and that the global burden of depression, measured in terms of disability-adjusted life years, will rank second only to ischaemic heart disease by the year 2020 (Murray and Lopez, 1996). 

MDD causes serious impairment. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is the leading cause of disability (based on years lived with disability) and the fourth leading contributor to the global burden of disease (based on disability adjusted life years).4 Those with 12-month MDD reported a mean of about 35 days in the past year in which they were unable to work or carry out usual activities.2... 

WHO (2011) Health statistics and health information systems - metrics disability-adjusted life year (DALY)... 

In effect, of course, such diseases are the ones primarily prevalent in low-income countries. Figure 4.1 shows diseases according to total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost to each disease or condition. (A DALY is a standardized measure of health outcomes.) Some diseases are grouped together for convenience. The vertical axis shows the weight of each disease in low- and lower-middle-income countries, relative to its weight in high-and upper-middle-income countries. A disease responsible for 6% of lost... 

In contrast to the estimates of the costs of REACH, no financial estimates of the health and environmental benefits of REACH were made by the impact assessment the report pointed out that the lack of knowledge about exposure to and the effects of chemicals - a knowledge gap that REACH is intended to fill — makes quantitative assessment of them impossible. But the report does say that the evidence available supports the assessment that the health burden related to chemicals is considerable (CEC, 2003, p25) and that it seems that the impacts of chemicals on the environment are potentially large (CEC, 2003, p26). However, a calculation of the monetary value of possible health benefits was made as an illustration assuming 1 per cent of disease is attributable to chemicals, and that this would be reduced by 10 per cent following the implementation of REACH, 45,000 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) of disease would be avoided every year. This is equivalent to 4500 lives per year, assuming 10 DALYs is equivalent to one mortal-... 

DALY, disability adjusted life years. b PDF, potentially disappeared fraction of plant species. 

It is important to additionally account for differences in potential toxicological consequences (severity, damage, or impact) in the comparison. Characterization factors can be expressed in terms of metrics such as DALYs (disability adjusted life years) for human health, for example. The results for toxicological impacts can be directly cross-compared with those of DALY-based indicators for other impact categories, such as for climate change. 

Protozoan parasites are responsible for some of the most devastating and prevalent diseases of humans and domestic animals. Protozoan parasites threaten the lives of nearly one-third of the worldwide human population, and are responsible for the loss of more than 50 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and more than 2 million deaths a year. The parasite species responsible for malaria Plasmodium spp) are at the forefront in terms of their ability to inflict devastating effects and mortality on the human population, but the parasites responsible for the various forms of leishmaniasis (Leishmania spp), African sleeping sickness Trypanosoma brucei) and Chagas disease Trypanosoma cruzi) are also important contributors to global morbidity and mortality figures. Many other parasitic species also contribute significantly to the world s disease burden. 

Characterization is able to help us choose a way to measure the impact of coal dust on the human body at various stages by quantifying the impact of dust into the same shape or by size of the same unit (Deng, N.S. Wang, X.B., 2003) so that the severity of health damage caused by dust can be seen intuitionally. This method uses the disability adjusted life years (DALY) (WHO, 1987) to... 

Murray, C.J. (1994). Quantifying the burden of disease The technical basis for disability adjusted life years. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 72(3) 429 5. 

Some people see this tremendous and increasing toll as an unavoidable cost of progress . As the number of cars increases and as the world population increases, so will the number of crashes and victims. Thus, given the current trends, death from a motor-vehicle crash is projected to become the third most common cause of death by 2020 (less than fifteen years from now), versus the 9 place in 1990 (over fifteen years ago) (Fallon and O Neill, 2005). The data in Table 1-1, of the leading causes of death in the U.S., show that in the U.S. this future is almost here. In fact, motor-vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death in the U.S. for people of ages 4-34, and the third leading cause in terms of years of life lost. The measure of years of life lost also has significant economic implications, especially when calculated in terms of composite measures that include the quality of life (such as DALY -disability-adjusted life years). 

DALYs (Disability adjusted life years) Healthy life years lost due to disability and mortality. 1 DALY lost = 1 year of healthy life lost, due to premature death/ disability. DALYs combine both mortality and disability. 

Murray, C. J. L., et al. (2012) Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) for 291 Diseases and Injuries in 21 Regions, 1990-2010 A Systematic Analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. The Lancet 380(9859) 2197-223. 

When the measures of years of life lost and disability-adjusted life years are used, there can be no dispute that road crashes comprise one of society s most prevalent diseases—the disease of mobility—and constitute one of our most prevalent public health problems. Yet, most nations continue to drive their traffic safety strategies and programs from their road transport-based institutions. 

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