The disability-adjusted life year (DALY) has emerged in the international health policy
lexicon as a new measure of the 'burden of disease'. We argue that the conceptual and
technical basis for DALYs is flawed, and its assumptions and value judgements are open to
serious question. In particular, the implications of age-weighting and discounting are found
to be unacceptable. Moreover, the proponents of DALYs do not distinguish between the
exercises of measuring the burden of disease and of allocating resources. But the …