Public health indicators
Mortality, morbidity, life expectancy, DALYs, rate standardisation and the demographic transition.
15 pages
Concept
- Age, period and cohort effects; reading trendsA rate changes because of people's age, because of something that happened in a given year, or…
- Demographic transition and the population pyramidPopulations move from many births and many deaths to few of both
- Epidemiologic transitionWith development, the main causes of death shift from infections to chronic diseases such as…
- Quality of care: structure, process and outcomeQuality of care is measured in three layers: what care is given with, what is done, and what…
- Social determinants of healthThe conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and how power and money are…
- Sources of health dataHealth indicators come from certificates, registries, surveys and medical records; each source…
Measure
- Case fatality rateOf the people who get a disease, how many die of it?
- Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)They add the years lost by dying early and the years lived with illness or disability
- Infant, neonatal and perinatal mortalityThey count deaths of babies and young children per 1,000 live births
- Life expectancyHow many years a person would live on average if, all through life, they faced the age-specific…
- Maternal mortality ratioIt counts women who die from causes linked to pregnancy, birth or the weeks after, per 100,000…
- Mortality rates: crude and specificThey count how many people die in a population over a period
- Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs)They combine how long people live and how well
- Standardisation of ratesIt lets you compare mortality between populations with different ages, as if they all had the…
- Years of potential life lostThey add up how many years each person who died before a cut-off age still had ahead
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← Epidemiology, biostatistics and public health
Educational content on epidemiological and statistical methods; the examples use made-up numbers to teach the calculation. Not a clinical or legal guide: current Colombian rules are in the official sources.
Representative model, for educational purposes only.