Preventable years of life lost
Preventable years of life lost (PrYLL) is an epidemiological measure. It is an estimate of the average years a person would have lived if s/he had not died prematurely due to a preventable cause of death. PrYLL is closely related to potential years of life lost (PYLL) and like PYLL, it gives more weight than mortality rates to deaths that occur among younger people. Unlike PYLL, PrYLL excludes causes of death that aren’t deemed to be preventable. Premature deaths are those that could be avoided through public health interventions such as getting people to take more exercise or stop smoking, or in tackling the wider social determinants of health.Causes of death can be classified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes. The United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published lists of ICD codes that are deemed to be . Within this publication, the ONS proposes the following definition for preventable causes of death: “A death is preventable if, in the light of current understanding of the determinants of health, all or most deaths from that cause (subject to age limits if appropriate) could be avoided by public health interventions in the broadest sense”. (Wikipedia).
