The effect of various health and illness status on society, has always been a matter of interest to public health researchers and policy makers. Specific mortality rate is a simple image of overall burden of a disease, but it only considers the fatality of a disease. Regarding this lack of representativeness, other indices are developed to investigate the burden of various diseases. Two of the most commonly used include Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY). In both indices, in addition to mortality, other effects of a disease are introduced. Death is considered as zero quality or maximal disability but Weighting is used to quantify the non fatal effects of disease. QALY was developed earlier than DALY. This index is mostly used in cost utility studies to determine the necessity of a desired intervention. DALY index was introduced later to clarify calculations. DALY is calculated at the national and global level by the support of World Health Organization (WHO) regularly. However there are some different ways to calculate DALY, WHO promotes its standard method which has gone through some changes in years. QALY is an index of expected health (higher is better) but DALY is an index showing distance to an ideal health (lower is better). In this study we aim to investigate and compare the use of these two indices in public health studies.

• Batukaev, A., Malih, G., Magomadov, A., Batukaev, A., & Seget, O. (2019). New Technological Solutions for the Production of Planting Material of Grapes. Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques, 7(4), 581-587.
• Beigzadeh R, Rastegar SO (2020) Assessment of Cr (VI) Biosorption from Aqueous Solution by Artificial Intelligence. Chemical Methodologies 4(2. pp. 115-219): 181-190.
• Beresniak A, Medina-Lara A, Auray JP, De Wever A, Praet JC, Tarricone R, et al. (2015) Validation of the underlying assumptions of the quality-adjusted life-years outcome: results from the ECHOUTCOME European project. PharmacoEconomics 33(1): 61-9. PMID: 25230587
• Bravo Vergel Y, Sculpher M (2008) Quality-adjusted life years. Pract neurol 8(3): 175-82. https://doi.org/10.1136/pn.2007.140186
• Camps-Herrero C, Paz-Ares L, Codes M, Lopez-Lopez R, Anton-Torres A, Gascon-Vilaplana P, et al. (2014) Social value of a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) in Spain: the point of view of oncologists. Clin Transl Oncol: official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico 16(10): 914-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12094-014-1170-1
• Department of Information (2017) Evidence and Research WHO, Geneva. WHO methods and data sources for global burden of disease estimates 2000-2015. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/GlobalDALYmethods_2000_2015.pdf
• Fanshel S, Bush JW (1970) A health-status index and its application to health-services outcomes. Operations research 18(6): 1021-66. https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.18.6.1021
• Gerard K (1992) Cost-utility in practice: a policy maker’s guide to the state of the art. Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands) 21(3): 249-79. PMID: 10120196
• Ghanbari F, Monavari SM, Kiani Sadr M, Rahimi R, Mirbolooki H (2020) Pesticide in Soil and Rice Crop from North of Iran: Concentration and Risk Assessment. Advanced Journal of Chemistry, Section A: Theoretical, Engineering and Applied Chemistry 3(2, pp. 111-236): 211-220.
• Gold MR, Stevenson D, Fryback DG, HALYS QALYS DALYS (2002) Oh My: similarities and differences in summary measures of population Health. Annu rev public health 23: 115-34. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.23.100901.140513
• Griebsch I, Coast J, Brown J (2005) Quality-adjusted life-years lack quality in pediatric care: a critical review of published cost-utility studies in child health. Pediatrics 115(5): e600-14. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2004-2127
• Grosse SD, Lollar DJ, Campbell VA, Chamie M (2009) Disability and Disability-Adjusted Life Years: Not the Same. Public Health Reports 124(2): 197-202. PMCID: PMC2646475
• Iran Health Data (2017) Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Retrieved from http://www.healthdata.org/iran
• Judging whether public health interventions offer value for money (2013) [updated 2013; cited 2018]; Retrieved from https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/lgb10/chapter/judging-the-cost-effectiveness-of-public-health-activities
• Mathers CD, Lopez AD, Murray CJ (2006) The burden of disease and mortality by condition: data, methods and results for 2001. Global burden of disease and risk factors 1: 45:88.
• Mirzadeh M, Mirzaei M, Mirzaei M, Shogaei Far H (2015) Years of Life Lost and Childhood and Adolescent Cancer Mortality in Yazd Province, Iran (2004-2009). Iran J Ped Hematol Oncol 5(3): 125-30.
• Mirzaei M, Mirzadeh M, Mirzaei M (2016) Expected Years of Life Lost Due to Adult Cancer Mortality in Yazd (2004-2010). Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention: APJCP 17(S3): 101-5. https://doi.org/10.7314/apjcp.2016.17.s3.101
• Mirzaei M, Mirzadeh M, Mirzaei M (2017) Mortality Rate and Years of Life Lost Due to Prostate Cancer in Yazd Province, Iran: A 10-year study. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal 17(4): e424. PMCID: PMC5766298
• Mirzaei M, Mirzadeh M, Shogaei Far H, Mirzaei M (2016) Trends in Road Traffic Deaths in Yazd, Iran, 2004 - 2010. Archives of Trauma Research 5(2): e29266. PMCID: PMC5035672
• Murray CJ (1994) Quantifying the burden of disease: the technical basis for disability-adjusted life years. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 72(3): 429-45. PMID: 8062401
• Murray CJ, Ezzati M, Flaxman AD, Lim S, Lozano R, Michaud C, et al. (2012) GBD 2010: design, definitions, and metrics. Lancet (London, England) 380(9859): 2063-6. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61899-6
• Murray CJ, Lopez AD, Organization WH (1996) The global burden of disease: a comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries, and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020: summary. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/41864/1/0965546608_eng.pdf
• Naghavi M, Abajobir AA, Abbafati C, Abbas KM, Abd-Allah F, Abera SF, ... Ahmadi A (2017) Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. The Lancet 390(10100): 1151-1210.
• Prieto L, Sacristán JA (2003) Problems and solutions in calculating quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Health Qual Life Outcomes 1: 80-. PMCID: PMC317370
• Rahavi H, Taft AS, Mirzaei M (2018) Years of life lost due to asthma in a population-based 10-year study in Yazd, Iran. Lung India 35: 472-5 doi: 10.4103/lungindia.lungindia_66_18.
• Sassi F (2006) Calculating QALYs, comparing QALY and DALY calculations. Health policy and planning 21(5): 402-408.
• Taft AS, Rahavi HR, Mirzaei M (2018) Years of life lost due to unintentional injuries in children. J Adv Pharm Edu Res 8[S2]: 108-113
• Torrance GW. (1986) Measurement of health state utilities for economic appraisal. J Health Econ 5(1): 1-30. PMID: 10311607
• Umapathi SA, Natarajan JC (2019) Studies on mechanical properties of isoro fibers mixed with calcium corbanate reinforced with polypropylene. Asian Journal of Green Chemistry.
• Vigo D (2016) Thornicroft G, Atun R. Estimating the true global burden of mental illness. Lancet Psychiatry 3(2): 171-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00505-2
• Vos T, Abajobir AA, Abate KH, Abbafati C, Abbas KM, Abd-Allah F, ... Aboyans V (2017) Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 328 diseases and injuries for 195 countries, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 The Lancet, 390(10100): 1211-1259.
• Wagner RG, Ibinda F, Tollman S, Lindholm L, Newton CR, Bertram MY (2015) Differing Methods and Definitions Influence DALY estimates: Using Population-Based Data to Calculate the Burden of Convulsive Epilepsy in Rural South Africa. PLoS ONE 10(12): e0145300. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0145300
• Whitehead SJ, Ali S (2010) Health outcomes in economic evaluation: the QALY and utilities. Br Med Bull 96: 5-21. https://doi.org/10.1093/bmb/ldq033
• World Health Organization (2006) Years of life lost (percentage of total). Retrieved from http://www.who.int/whosis/whostat2006YearsOfLifeLost.pdf.
• Zeckhauser R, Shepard D (1976) Where now for saving lives? Law and contemporary problems 40(4): 5-45.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.