Abstract

PEIXOTO, Heloisa Côrtes Gallotti  and  SOUZA, Maria de Lourdes de. O indicador anos potenciais de vida perdidos e a ordenação das causas de morte em Santa Catarina, 1995^*. Inf. Epidemiol. Sus [online]. 1999, vol.8, n.1, pp.17-25. ISSN 0104-1673.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5123/S0104-16731999000100003.

Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL), for persons under the age of 70, is presented as an alternative indicator to the traditionally employed one in listing the main causes of mortality. The article analyzes changes in the listing and in the relative importance of death causes considering the new proposed indicator, using mortality data-base from Santa catarina State in 1995. Throughout that year, 440.939 potential years of life were cut short, representing an average of 28.1 years per death. The use of the indicator in listing the causes increased the relative importance of external causes, and those having greater importance upon children, such as perinatal deaths, congenital abnormalities, and intestinal infections. Using PYLL the order of importance of the main causes of mortality were the transit accidents (15.5%), affections originated during the perinatal phase (14.6%), and the other accidents (9.3%). The rationale of valuing premature mortality, implicit in the indicator, as well as the simplicity of its figuring out and interpretation, seems to point towards its growing incorporation to the health planning process and evaluation.

Keywords : Potential Years of Life Lost; Mortality; Health Indicators.

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