Aim: to estimate the burden of mortality from routinely available data. We consider here that the burden of morbidity is measured by the healthy life expectancy at the moment of death.
Definition: the number of lost years due to death is estimated by the healthy life expectancy. Since death can be caused by an association of illnesses, these lost years are allocated by diseases with the same method than disease cost estimation.
Output files: Results are given by insured in “death_burden.txt” file, with following variables:
#Insured Identifier of insured
Age Years
Gender 1 = male, 2 = female
Diseases See Categories
HLE Healthy life expectancy
Strength of the indicator: this method should provide actual lost years due to death, corresponding to recent and local values (no interpolation from other countries). It is also more realistic than the life expectancy, which include years lived with significant health issues.
Limitations: it is necessary to combine different sources of information to be sure to allocate lost years to the right illnesses. It is today difficult to bind data from death registers, cancer register, hospital and insurance statistics. But progress in encrypted anonymous linkage techniques might solve this issue.