Revisiting the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) as a Health Metric: Rigorous Science or Ableist Guesswork?

Dielle J. Lundberg
Additional contact information
Dielle J. Lundberg: Ableism & Healthcare Now

No nzk62_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: This research brief presents a methodological critique of the disability-adjusted life year (DALY), questioning the validity of this metric and arguing that it functions to uphold structural ableism in public health and healthcare. I establish first that the disability weights underlying the DALY are subjective social valuations of health states and are not valid measures of “the magnitude of health loss associated with specific health outcomes” as the Global Burden of Disease Study claims. I then document ableism throughout the assessment protocols used in creating the disability weights for the DALY at the levels of (a) selection of participants to complete the valuation, (b) description of health states for valuation, and (c) consideration of context where the valuation occurs. I conclude the research brief by examining two questions. First, why have the creators of the DALY and its champions positioned a subjective and ableist social valuation as rigorous science? And second, what does the widespread acceptance of the DALY across health disciplines reveal about the pervasiveness of structural ableism in health policy?

Date: 2025-07-31
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/68850401a93fa12077f27d4b/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:nzk62_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/nzk62_v1

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().