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The complementary concepts QALYs and DALYs combine years of life and quality of life in a single measure. 1- 3 In Arnesen and Nord's words: "QALYs are years of healthy life lived; DALYs are years of healthy life lost. Both approaches multiply the number of years (x axis) by the quality of those years (y axis). QALYs use "utility weights" of health states; DALYs use "disability weights" to reflect the burden of the same states. If the utility of deafness is 0.67, the disability weight of deafness is 1-0.67 = 0.33. Disregarding age weighting and discounting, and assuming lifetime expectancy of 80 years, a deaf man living 50 years represents 0.67x50 = 33.5 QALYs gained and 0.33x50+1.0x(80-50) = 46.5 DALYs lost". 2 Note that QALYs+DALYs = 33.5+46.5 = 80.0 = lifetime expectancy (complementariness).
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