an acronym everyone should know
YPLL (sometimes PYLL) stands for Years of Potential Life Lost, and by any rational comparison (i can think of) is a superior metric for the importance of (devoting resources to preventing) various causes of death. Some illustrative statistics are featured on Montana's Official State Website. Note in particular the change in prominence of motor vehicle accidents and suicides from one metric to the other on page 2. In observance of the "perinatal" statistic, i'm surprised the pro-life wankers* haven't taken more public advantage of this.
This was brought to mind today by our old friend NBC Nightly News: The final two stories both featured celebrities advocating preventative measures on two such CoDs**, medical mistakes and Alzheimer's. Extensive online research (5 minutes of Googling) reveals that both per-year deaths in the U.S. float around the upper tens of thousands, so their total YPLL ratio is approximately their average YPLL ratio. I can't find reliable numbers for either, but i think i'm gonna side with Dennis Quaid's campaign on where the resources would be put to best use.
* Yes, i know that most people who happen to be pro-life aren't wankers about it, and there are plenty of pro-life wankers nicely balancing them out.
** Yes, i watch too much "CSI".
This was brought to mind today by our old friend NBC Nightly News: The final two stories both featured celebrities advocating preventative measures on two such CoDs**, medical mistakes and Alzheimer's. Extensive online research (5 minutes of Googling) reveals that both per-year deaths in the U.S. float around the upper tens of thousands, so their total YPLL ratio is approximately their average YPLL ratio. I can't find reliable numbers for either, but i think i'm gonna side with Dennis Quaid's campaign on where the resources would be put to best use.
* Yes, i know that most people who happen to be pro-life aren't wankers about it, and there are plenty of pro-life wankers nicely balancing them out.
** Yes, i watch too much "CSI".