What is the standard abbreviation for the disability-adjusted life year?

• A. DALY
• B. QALY
• C. YLD
• D. LY

Answer: (A)

Disability-adjusted life year is abbreviated as DALY. It’s a summary measure of population health that combines two parts: years of life lost due to premature death (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD). By adding these together, DALYs capture the total burden of disease in a population, allowing comparisons across diseases, risk factors, and time. The other options refer to related ideas but aren’t the standard abbreviation for this measure: QALY stands for Quality-Adjusted Life Year and is used in economic evaluations to weigh both length and quality of life from an intervention; YLD represents only the disability portion of the burden; LY is not a standard term for this concept. DALYs are widely used in global health to quantify burden and guide policy decisions.