ICC COLUMN: The Voice of the Patient
Improving health care benefits by reducing costs
Abstract
Public health physicians at Harvard University developed the concept of Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY), meaning the years of life lost to illness, disability, or early death, in 1990 (1). The World Health Organization adopted the concept in 2000 as a unique and valuable measure of the impact of diseases that includes the contributions of both morbidity and mortality.