SPA 6 Statistics -
V. Burden of Disease and Injury Back to Table of Contents
Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)
In January 2000, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services completed a report titled The Burden of Disease in Los Angeles County: A Study of the Patterns of Morbidity and Mortality in the County Population. The report employed a new method - the Global Burden of Disease - to assess the total burden of disease and injury among Los Angeles County residents. The method combined premature mortality (measured using Years of Life Lost, or YLLs) and morbidity (measured using Years Lived with Disability, or YLDs) into a single measure of burden known as Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). The most important finding of the report was that DALYs produce a substantially different ranking of disease burden within Los Angeles County than do mortality rates alone.
The report included DALYs for Los Angeles County as well as for each SPA. Table 15 presents the ten leading causes of disease burden in SPA 6. Homicide/violence was the leading cause of disease burden (12,099 years), followed by coronary heart disease (8,536 years), diabetes mellitus (7,286 years), alcohol dependence (6,750 years), stroke (5,213 years), depression (4,016 years), motor vehicle crashes (3,675 years), trachea/bronchus/lung cancer (3,618 years), emphysema (3,240 years), and osteoarthritis (3,236 years). The table also lists rates of DALYs per 1,000 population. Rates of DALYs ranged from 12.7 to 3.4 per 1,000 population for the top ten causes of DALYs in SPA 6. The rate for homicide/violence was much higher than the rates for the next leading causes of DALYs.
Table 16 reports the ten leading causes of disease burden by gender in SPA 6. Homicide/violence and alcohol dependence were the two leading causes of premature death and disability (years of healthy life lost) for men with 8,356 and 4,142 years, respectively. Coronary heart disease, drug overdose/other intoxication, and diabetes mellitus were the third, fourth, and fifth leading causes of DALYs for men with 3,996, 3,423, and 2,779 years, respectively. In the Meantime, diabetes mellitus and coronary heart disease were the two leading causes of premature death and disability among women, with 3,796 and 3,676 years, respectively. Alcohol dependence, stroke, and asthma were the third, fourth, and fifth leading causes of DALYs for women with 3,280, 2,651, and 2,298 years, respectively. Homicide/violence appeared in the ten leading causes of DALYs for men but were not in the ten leading causes of DALYs for women. Lung cancer was the tenth leading cause of DALYs for men, while breast cancer was the tenth leading cause of DALYs for women.
