Potential Years of Life Lost

1 Definition

Potential Years of Life Lost (PYLL) is the simplest measure of time lost due to premature death, and it measures mortality gap using an arbitrary normative age. The formula is as follows.

$${\rm{PYLL }} = {\rm{ }}\sum\limits_{\chi = {\rm{0}}}^L {d_\chi (L - x)} $$

where L is the arbitrary limit to life, χ is the age at death, and $d_\chi$ is the number of deaths in the population at each age.