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Publication

Compendium – Years of life lost

Compendium Mortality Consultation 2022

NHS Digital is currently analysing the results of the consultation that closed on 14 September 2022. In the meantime the next publication is on hold.

6 February 2023 17:32 PM

Summary

Years of life lost (YLL) is a measure of premature mortality. Its primary purpose is to compare the relative importance of different causes of premature death within a particular population and it can therefore be used by health planners to define priorities for the prevention of such deaths. It can also be used to compare the premature mortality experience of different populations for a particular cause of death. The concept of years of life lost is to estimate the length of time a person would have lived had they not died prematurely. By inherently including the age at which the death occurs, rather than just the fact of its occurrence, the calculation is an attempt to better quantify the burden, or impact, on society from the specified cause of mortality.

From 2016 onwards, mortality counts within the Compendium Mortality Indicator set are based on a bespoke extract taken from the Primary Care Mortality Database (PCMD) maintained by NHS Digital. PCMD is updated monthly using a file of death records from ONS and is continually subject to amendment.

It is already well established that late registrations have a small impact on counts. This bespoke extract may be taken at a different time to that of the mortality data published by ONS and as such this may cause some small differences between ONS and NHS Digital mortality figures for a given year.



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Last edited: 12 May 2023 12:04 pm