Signature
DALY_rate = DALY / Pop * 100000
| Inputs | Definition | Unit |
|---|---|---|
DALY | DALYs from the cause in the population and year | DALYs |
Pop | Population of the same location, sex, age group and year | people |
DALY_rate | DALYs from the cause per 100,000 people | DALYs per 100,000 population |
|---|
Function
Disability-adjusted life years for a cause or a scenario from years of life lost and years lived with disability
Maps the deaths and the non-fatal health loss from a cause, or in one scenario of an economic evaluation, to disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) by adding the years of life lost (YLL) to the years lived with disability (YLD), each calculated by its own formula. YLLs are deaths times a standard loss function of the age at death (HE-FN-YLL-001, HE-FM-YLL-001, with the discounted form HE-FM-YLL-003 and the age-group total HE-CF-YLL-001), and YLDs are prevalent cases times a disability weight (HE-FM-DWT-001) or incident cases times the weight and the duration (HE-FN-YLD-001, HE-FM-YLD-001, discounted in HE-FM-YLD-002). This package adds the sum itself, the DALYs of a cohort in one scenario, DALYs averted and cost per DALY averted between two scenarios, the continuously discounted cohort form and the DALY rate per 100,000 population. DALYs averted by a change in disability weights alone, with mortality unchanged, are HE-FM-DWT-005, and the general incremental ratio is HE-FM-ICER-001. Notation follows the Disability-Adjusted Life Year article.
Try this function
Implementations
Excel
DALY rate per 100,000 from named cells
With DALYCount and Population named, the cell returns DALYs per 100,000 population, held in DALYRate.
=DALYCount/Population*100000
Assumptions
DALY count and population for the same place, group and year
The DALYs and the population refer to the same location, sex, age group and year. An all-age rate depends on the age structure, so comparisons between places or over time use age-specific or age-standardised rates.
Worked examples
Illustrative district DALY rate per 100,000
If the article's illustrative 1,440 DALYs arose in a district of 250,000 people, an illustrative population, the rate would be 576 DALYs per 100,000 population.
DALY = 1440; Pop = 250000; DALY_rate = 576
DALY rate in a population of exactly 100,000 as a limiting case
When the population is 100,000 the rate equals the DALY count, a check that the scaling is applied once.
DALY = 1440; Pop = 100000; DALY_rate = 1440
Common errors
Reading a rise in DALY counts as worsening population health
GBD 2021 found that global DALYs rose to 2.88 billion in 2021 against 2.63 billion in 2010, while the age-standardised DALY rate fell by 14.2% between 2010 and 2019, so much of the rise came from population growth and ageing. The age-standardised rate then rose again in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Counts and all-age rates are read alongside the age-standardised rate.
Sources
GBD 2021 counts and rates per 100,000 population
GBD 2021 Diseases and Injuries Collaborators. Global incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 371 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990-2021, a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021. The Lancet. 2024;403(10440) 2133-2161 (full text read). Methods, where metrics are estimated as counts, all-age and age-specific rates per 100 000 population and age-standardised rates per 100 000 using the GBD standard population. Findings, with global DALYs of 2.63 billion in 2010 and 2.88 billion in 2021 and a 14.2% fall in the global age-standardised all-cause DALY rate between 2010 and 2019, reversed during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canonical Identity
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