Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)

Synonyms

Estimate of a population related gender of disease

Definition

Disability adjusted life years (DALYs) for a disease are “the sum of the years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLL) in the population and the years lost due to disability (YLD) for incident cases of the health condition. The DALY is a health gap measure that extends the concept of potential years of life lost due to premature death (PYLL) to include equivalent years of ‘healthy’ life lost in states of less than full health, broadly termed disability”. “The DALY combines in one measure the time lived with disability and the time lost due to premature mortality. One DALY can be thought of as one lost year of ‘healthy’ life and the burden of disease as a measurement of the gap between current health status and an ideal situation where everyone lives into old age free of disease and disability”. (World Health Organization, 2007. http://www.who.int/healthinfo/boddaly/en/index.html)

Traditionally, health...