DALYs/QALYs

Template:Release Scope
DALYs/QALYs describes the way integrated measures can be used as a way to valuate health impacts. We focus on DALYs.

Description

DALYs give a quantatitave appraisal of the impact of a health effect, by combining information on the number of people affected, the duration of their status in a less-than-perfectly-healthy situation, and the severity of that situation (ranging from 0 (full health) to 1 (mortality)).

Background information about DALYs can be found at HIA and DALYs. In order to calculate DALYs, information is needed on the number of people with a certain health status (to be derived using previous assessment steps (see causality)), the duration of that health state and the severity factor of that health state.

References

WHO Global Burden of Disease

Victorian Burden of Disease study

Knol et al. Trends in the environmental burden of disease in the Netherlands, 1980 - 2020

Definition

DALYs are calculated the following way: Number of attributable cases * duration * severity. The number of attributable cases can be derived from previous assessment steps and is also described at HIA and DALYs. Severity factors for most diseases are available from the Victorian Burden of Disease study. For annoyance and sleep disturbance, severity is not included in that overview. For these conditions, 0.02 can be used as a central estimate.

Duration should be derived using expert judgments or life table analyses.

Causality

List of parents:

• Respiratory morbidity/mortality
• Cancer
• Cardiovascular morbidity/mortality
• Annoyance
• Sleep disturbance
• Injury/Mortality

Data

WHO Global Burden of Disease

Victorian Burden of Disease study

Formula

see above

Unit

DALYs

Result

Number of DALYs related to specific health impacts.