Taiwanese are spending more years of their life in poor health, Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed.
The population’s average disability-adjusted life years was 8.41 years in 2019, nearly a month longer than in 2018, the data showed.
Disability-adjusted life years measure the time a person spends in poor health, has a disability or dies before reaching a population’s average life expectancy.
Taipei Times file photo
Health experts introduced the measure in 1990 to express the overall health in a country and gauge public healthcare costs.
Chiu Hung-yi (邱弘毅), a public health professor at Taipei Medical University, said that the measure primarily expresses the social effects of chronic diseases.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the measure for last year and this year is expected to be higher, as disease prevention lifestyles might have led to a greater number of people experiencing poor health, Chiu said, adding that the numbers would be released next year.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has required many to stay at home and not exercise,” he said. “People with chronic diseases might have postponed visits to clinics and hospitals, which might have made it difficult to control their conditions.”
Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital Director Chen Ying-ren (陳英仁) said that while many people have not exercised much and postponed appointments for medical treatment, fewer people contracted influenza, pneumonia and the common cold — diseases that mostly affect middle-aged people and the elderly — because they followed disease prevention measures that were imposed to control the spread of COVID-19.
“Whether this year’s disability-adjusted life years are to increase requires further observation,” Chen said.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said that there are two ways to address the issue.
“On the one hand, Taiwan needs to implement measures introduced by the Health Promotion Administration to help people stay healthy as they age,” he said. “On the other hand, the authorities need to enforce the Patient Right to Autonomy Act (病人自主權利法) to reduce the number of unnecessary visits to hospitals.”
People who have a terminal disease could be encouraged to draft wills, where they indicate whether they wish to deny medical treatment under certain conditions,” he said. “This would reduce the life years affected by disability.”
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