• Potential Years of Life Lost [75], PYLL [75]

 
Corresponding Mandatory Objectives

• None

  
Corresponding National Indicators

• Potential Years of Life Lost (All Causes of Death, All Circulatory Disease Deaths, All Respiratory Disease Deaths, All Unintentional Injury Deaths, All Suicides). Website: http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-221-XIE/2005002/hlthstatus/deaths4.htm

  
Data Sources (see Resources: Data Sources)

Numerator: Mortality Data
Original source: Ontario Office of Registrar General (ORG)
Distributed by:

Suggested citation (see Data Citation Notes):

Denominator: Population Estimates
Original source: Statistics Canada
Distributed by:

Suggested citation (see Data Citation Notes):

* Note: Use the total years of the estimates, including the most recent year, even if not all were used in the analysis. The years used in the analysis should be included in the report itself.

 

Alternative Data Sources

• Statistics Canada, Health Indicators

 
ICD Codes  
 

 
Analysis Check List

• Suppress numbers <5 or rates and proportions based on counts less than 5.
• If small numbers are an issue multiple years of data may be summed in the numerator to create a more stable rate. In this case, be sure to sum an equal number of years of population data for the denominator or divide by the number of years of data used.
• For HELPS:
  • Caution against using “Leading Cause” variable since it is not inclusive.
  • Ontario residents who died outside of the province were included in HELPS from 1981 to 1992 but have been excluded since 1993. This particularly affects areas bordering Quebec and Manitoba. Exclude the out-of-province deaths for both local and provincial analysis.
• For PHPDB:
  • Use Deaths table from Vital Statistics section of model, use Count All function under Query/Modifiers tabs.
  • Out-of-province residents who died in Ontario are excluded in HELPS but are included in the PHPDB total counts. Exclude deaths out-of-province residents from analysis if using the PHPDB.
  • Select on geography of “Where Deceased Lived” (geography could be postal code, postal code FSA, province, county-municipality, county, region, district health council or public health unit) using geography code not geography name. If geography code is not known, “Prompts” can be used or codes can be looked up in “Geo Names” Code Table. Geography of “Where Death Occurred” can also be selected if desired.
  • In mortality data, ICD-9 codes 800-999 refer to the External Causes of Injury and Poisoning codes (e-codes) unlike in hospital data where these codes refer to the Chapter XVII, Injury and Poisoning codes. In the morality data set, Injury and Poisoning codes can be accessed from the “Nature of Injury” attribute/variable.

 
Method of Calculation
 

 
 
Basic Categories

• Sex: male, female and total.
• Geographic areas of residence of deceased: health planning region, public health unit, district health council, county from PHPDB or census division from HELPS, municipality from PHPDB or census sub-division from HELPS, forward sortation area (1996 onward) and postal code (1996 onward).
• ICD Chapters

  
Indicator Comments

• PYLL is an indicator of premature mortality. It represents the number of years not lived by an individual from birth to age 75. This indicator places more weight on causes of early death than those causes of death at older ages.
• The choice of an upper age limit (e.g. 75) can vary according to changes in life expectancy and/or reporting conventions.

 
Cross-References to Other Sections

• None

 
References

1. Wong C. Leading causes of death, Ontario 1996 - Measured by incidence of deaths, potential years of life lost, and period expected years of life lost. PHERO 1999;10(8):160-3.

Date of Last Revision: June 1, 2006 .