NCDs cause most disability in South Africa
The leading cause of disablity in South Africa is hardly a surprise, HIV/AIDS. And, the good news is that there is a 10% reduction compared to 2007.
But what this image shows is that NCDs (the blue dots) remain the largest group illnesses to cause disability irrespective of age. What is alarming is the for 6/8 NCDs listed, the increases are in double digits.
Disability measure =YLD
Disability is measured as by the amount of time, in years,that people lose to diseases and injuries = years of life lost to disability (YLD).
A disabling condition does kill you but takes its personal and societal toll.
Calculating YLD
Mulitipy a disability’s severity by the time it lasts. This means that a short-term, severe health problem and a long-term, relatively mild health problem could both result in the same number of YLDs.
For example, someone who needs two months to recover from a car accident but then regains their full health and someone who experiences relatively mild but lifelong back pain could end up losing the same number of years of their lives to disability. YLDs take into account all disabilities, including lower-visibility ones that result in daily pain, lost work time, or an inability for someone to thrive as they otherwise might.