Measuring health burden without discriminating against the disabled

Area of Science:

• Health economics
• Public health measurement
• Disability studies

Background:

• Population health measures like the Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) are crucial for health policy.
• Concerns exist that DALYs may discriminate against individuals with disabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the disability discrimination inherent in current health measures.
• To propose a novel health metric, the Ethically Adjusted Life Year (EALY), to address this discrimination.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the disability discrimination problem in health metrics.
• Adaptation of a fixed-plus-variable framework from welfare economics.
• Development of the Ethically Adjusted Life Year (EALY) as a new health measurement tool.

Main Results:

• The proposed Ethically Adjusted Life Year (EALY) can, in certain formulations, prevent discrimination against disabled individuals.
• The EALY presents distinct advantages compared to other methods for avoiding disability discrimination.

Conclusions:

• The Ethically Adjusted Life Year (EALY) shows promise for more equitable health burden measurement.
• Consideration of the EALY is warranted for assessing health interventions and their impact.