Health Indicators

• Health Indicators definition

  Health Indicators are standard statistic that are used to measure and compare health statues
• Health status definition

  Health status is an individuals or populations overall health, taking into account various aspects such as life expectancy, amount of disability, levels of disease and risk factors.
• Health status helps us understand a populations health so we can;

  • Identify trends
  • Make future predictions
  • Identify areas of concern
  • Allocate funding
• Life expectancy is the an indication of how long a person can expect to live if current rates do not change.
• Morbidity refers to ill-health in an individual and the levels of ill-health in a population. It is the rate of which acute and chronic diseases occur in a population.
• Mortality is the death rate, usually expresses as the number of deaths resulting from a given disease or condition per 100,000.
• Infant Mortality rates (IMR) refers to the number of children who die before their first birthday, usually measured as deaths per 1,000 live births.
• Under 5 mortality rate (U5MR) is the number of children who die before their fifth birthday per 1000 live births.
• Maternal mortality rate is the deaths of mothers as a result of pregnancy or childbirth up to six weeks after delivery. Measured per 100,000 births.
• Years of Life Lost (YLL) is a measure of how many years of expected life are lost due to premature death.
• Health-adjusted life expectancy is the number of years lived without reduced functioning due to illness. It involves more then simply being alive or dead.
• Prevalence of disease refers to the number of people in a population suffering from a disease at a given time.


  Incidence of disease refers to the number of new cases of a disease that occurs within a given time.
• Burden of disease refers to a combination of premature mortality and levels of disability arising from illness and injury within a population.
• Disability-adjusted life year (DALY) is a measure of the burden of disease. Healthy years lost due to living with disability/illness or being in poor health. One DALY is equal to one year of life lost due to premature death or disability and the time lived with illness, death or injury.
• YLL + YLD = DALY