Health-Adjusted Life Year

Original Editor - Your name will be added here if you created the original content for this page.

Top Contributors - Wendy Walker, Kim Jackson, Tony Lowe, Naomi O'Reilly, Laura Ritchie, Tarina van der Stockt, WikiSysop, Lauren Lopez and Jess Bell  

Introduction & definition

Health-Adjusted Life Years are a measurement of the health of a population, typically used in estimates of the burden of disease.

HALYs are used to measure the combined effects of mortality and morbidity in populations; they permit comparisons between ilnesses or interventions as well as between populations

Calculation of HALY

The two most common ways of measureing HALYs are:

• Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)
• Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs)

Function/Uses of HALYs

HALYs are based on the latest available epidemiological data; the accuracy & usefulness of the HALY measurement depends on the completeness & accuracy of the data used, which can be taken from a variety of sources, including: census & national surveillance data; hospital records; surveys (eg. road safety surveys, or health surveys); police records; mortuary records; death certificate information.

Ideally the data should all be recent, locally derived and disaggregated by age and sex.

References

References will automatically be added here, see adding references tutorial.