Years of Life Lost due to exposure: Causal concepts and empirical shortcomings.

ABSTRACT: Excess Years of Life Lost due to exposure is an important measure of health impact complementary to rate or risk statistics. I show that the total excess Years of Life Lost due to exposure can be estimated unbiasedly by calculating the corresponding excess Years of Potential Life Lost given conditions that describe study validity (like exchangeability of exposed and unexposed) and assuming that exposure is never preventive. I further demonstrate that the excess Years of Life Lost conditional on age at death cannot be estimated unbiasedly by a calculation of conditional excess Years of Potential Life Lost without adopting speculative causal models that cannot be tested empirically. Furthermore, I point out by example that the excess Years of Life Lost for a specific cause of death, like lun

SUBMITTER: Morfeld P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC545055 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature