Taiwanese on average added more than five healthy months to their lives during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest gain in a decade due in part to a reduction in other communicable diseases, Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed.
The trend was reflected in the nation’s disability-adjusted life years (DALY), which measures the time a person spends in poor health or with a disability, or who dies before reaching the average life expectancy for their population.
It is typically used to measure the overall disease burden on a population, with a larger number indicating more years lost to poor health or premature death.
Ministry data showed that the DALY dropped to 8.04 in 2020 from 8.47 the year before, indicating an average of 73.28 years of health.
This means that Taiwanese on average lived about 5.16 more healthy months in the first year of the global COVID-19 pandemic than in 2019.
It was also the greatest drop in the DALY measure after a decade of steady gains, except for three years in which there were slight declines.
Reasons for the decline are twofold, Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital geriatric specialist Chen Ying-ren (陳英仁) said on Saturday.
First was the relative disappearance of other communicable diseases such as influenza, pneumonia and the common cold, Chen said, crediting pandemic prevention strategies such as wearing masks and washing hands regularly.
This also contributed to a lower mortality rate, with more than 2,000 fewer deaths recorded in 2020 than in 2019, the first time in 11 years that the number of deaths and mortality rate decreased, he said.
Chen also attributed the lower DALY figure to a maturation of attitudes toward hospice care, as more patients and their families have become more willing to turn to hospices in their waning days and sign do-not-resuscitate orders.
“Views on the meaning and value of life are changing, which also perhaps contributed to the lower DALY number,” he added.
Hsu Chih-cheng (許志成), deputy director of the Institute of Population Health Sciences at the National Health Research Institutes, agreed that the decline in communicable disease was the likely cause, although he said that more research is likely necessary to confirm the inference and develop strategies to help affected populations.
For instance, if the DALY mainly measures the effect of chronic conditions, research is needed to determine which patients are most likely to benefit from a reduction in infectious disease, he said.
One year of DALY decline is a long time, but it is worth observing if it continued to fall throughout the domestic COVID-19 outbreak last year, Hsu said, adding that two years of data would provide more accurate results.
To keep the trend going, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) recommended “healthy aging” strategies to help preserve an acute body and mind well into old age.
He also advocated a reduction in ineffective medical care by better implementing the Patient Right to Autonomy Act (病人自主權利法), which protects people’s right to make their own decisions about the last stage of their lives.
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