The WHO claims that “surgical interventions account for 13% of the world’s total disability-adjusted life years.”
DALYs are bad. Averting them is good.[1] This means that 13% of the world’s loss of healthy life years is caused by the outcomes of surgery interventions. This is probably better than the counterfactual (no surgery), but it’s kind of a weird metric to cite when defending the safety of surgery?
Yes to that footnote but the original abbreviation is confusing. It should be something like “disease adjustments to life years” .. not “disease adjusted life years”. Bc life years are good in general.
DALYs are bad. Averting them is good.[1] This means that 13% of the world’s loss of healthy life years is caused by the outcomes of surgery interventions. This is probably better than the counterfactual (no surgery), but it’s kind of a weird metric to cite when defending the safety of surgery?
Ironically, we often use DALYs to mean “averted DALYs”, especially in EA. This annoys me.
Yes to that footnote but the original abbreviation is confusing. It should be something like “disease adjustments to life years” .. not “disease adjusted life years”. Bc life years are good in general.