Lecture 1 - HKS - Health and medicine

Question 1

what does DALYs stand for

Answer 1

Disability Adjusted Life Years

Question 3

function of DALYs

Answer 3

• direct comparison of burden across diseases
• summing burden across diseases
• compare treated and untreated diseases
• ## compare different disease interventions

Question 4

define DALYs

Answer 4

a common, standardised metric which takes both morbidity and mortality into account for a particular disease. It allows us to add together burden across diseases and permits us to quantify interventions.
(standardised quantitative measure burden of disease)

Question 5

quatifying mortality

Answer 5

life expectancy - age of death (LY: life yrs)

Question 6

quantifying morbidity

Answer 6

disability weight x durarion of disability (DA: disability adjustment)

Question 7

DALYs calc

Answer 7

DA + LY

Question 8

where to find info required to calc DALYs

Answer 8

• clinical surveys
• epidemiologic studies
• global burden of disease tables

Question 9

Health Indicators (examples)

Answer 9

A health indicator is a quantifiable measure which describes the health of a population.

Question 10

examples of health indicators

Answer 10

Mortality rates - adult

Neonatal mortality rate

Mortality rates by cause of death (Cause- specific mortality)

Infant mortality

Life expectancy

Prevalence of diseases/conditions

Admissions to hospital by diseases/conditions

Utilisation of general practice services

Frequency of health risk factors

Question 11

health literacy

Answer 11

how one accesses uses health info to improve health