DALYs: It's not just the years in your life

Like terminal cancer...      (Public Domain)

If a person dies 12 years before the life-expectancy average, and the final four years before death were spent wracked with pain, then how long did that person actually live?

This is not just an idle koan for those who deal daily in DALYs.

Dylan Matthews of Vox explains that DALYs  (aka “disability-adjusted life years”) measure how much disease- or situation-induced disabilities affect both the length and quality of lives.

For example, “a year in prison is half as good as one on the outside.”  It therefore carries approximately “the same disability weight as having terminal cancer.”

Another way of looking at DALYs is this:  “A disease that cuts 10 years off your lifespan and causes 10 years of partial paralysis before that has a higher DALY toll than one that just cuts off 10 years…”

DALYs are currently being utilized to determine where and to what extent altruistic funding should occur.  This sounds terrific, but there is a flip side:  How is it that a broad-brush formula can determine overall quality of life? 

Could a reliance upon DALYs lead to an overly analytical approach concerning such issues?  Are not “heart-based” and/or intuitive decisions also quite valid? 

Resources

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/you-have-dollar8-billion-you-want-to-do-as-much-good-as-possible-what-do-you-do/ar-AAbCGOO

Copyright May 2, 2015 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved