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• The Strategy
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• • Trends in injury rates
  • Injury death rates
  • Disability Adjusted Life Years
  • Injury related deaths and serious injury

'Disability Adjusted Life Years' (DALYs) due to injury

The disability adjusted life year (DALY) is a composite measure of years of life lost because of premature mortality and equivalent years lost because of lower 'quality of life' as a result of serious injury and disability.

The DALY is a useful measure because it combines the impact of fatal and non-fatal injury. The DALY permits comparisons across a wide range of health problems, including injury, and can be used as a quantitative basis for setting priorities and policies. DALYs can also be used to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions.

One DALY represents the loss of one year of 'healthy life'.

DALYs are calculated by adding YLL and YLD together.

YLL means 'years lost to premature mortality' and involves counting the number of years that a fatally injured person might have been expected to still live for.

YLD means 'years lost to disability' and is estimated by taking the number of cases of non-fatal injury (e.g. hospitalisations) and applying weightings for duration and disability.

In 1996, YLL for injury was 36,307 and YLD was estimated to be 13,277. Adding these together gives a total of DALYs lost of 49,584.

DALYs lost due to injury have recently been estimated for New Zealand. The major contributors to total DALYs lost due to injury are road traffic/transport injuries, suicides, and falls. In 1996, these accounted for 72% of total DALYs for injury in New Zealand.

Figure 1. Disability adjusted life years for injury by mechanism, 1996

DALY calculations for New Zealand are derived from the injury death and injury hospitalisation records held by the New Zealand Health Information Service (NZHIS). Losses from injuries not resulting in hospitalisation are therefore not included.

Key New Zealand publications on DALYs are:

Ministry of Health (2001)
The Burden of Injury and Disease in New Zealand
Ministry of Health, New Zealand.

Ministry of Health (2001)
Priorities for Maori and Pacific Health: Evidence from Epidemiology Ministry of Health, New Zealand.