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The DALY
approach is increasingly cited as a powerful tool for decision-makers in international
health (Bobadilla et al 1994, Bobadilla 1996, Murray and Lopez 1996). It's attractiveness
lies in the fact that it combines information about mortality and morbidity in a single
number. DALYs allow the losses due to disability and the losses due to premature death to
be expressed in the same unit. Hence, DALYs facilitate comparisons of different (in theory
all) types of health states or health outcomes. In particular, this makes it easier to
include the burden caused by disability and chronic diseases in cost-effectiveness
studies. For instance, with such an index in place, one could say, that the number of
DALYs due to the premature death of one girl aged 5, equals the number of DALYs caused by
three girls of the same age suffering a below- knee amputation. |