The concept of DALYs lost was developed as a combined measure of mortality (years of life lost) and morbidity (years lived with disability). It captures the burden of a long- term health condition, ranging from mild ill health to premature death, in a single, summary metric on a national or regional level, for example useful for estimating the societal cost of stroke (healthcare cost, formal and informal care costs, productivity lost). Country-level DALY estimates are very rare, as the data necessary for calculation are difficult to collect and significant estimations are needed. One recent study estimated that cerebrovascular disease generated 1,113 DALYs per 100,000 in Spain in 2008, but points out the significant variations in result depending on different estimates[73]. DALYs lost is widely used for international comparisons in the Global Burden of Disease study (Chapter 1.5).
“I got the privileged service from the insurance; they wanted me to come back to work, so they invested in me. And this is today’s problem; they don’t do it any longer [i.e. invest in rehabilitation], and that is why I am fighting for the patients, because I received such good help and I am now really in a good shape.”
(Female stroke survivor, Austria)
