Valuing mortality and morbidity from environmental stressors with QALY or DALY?

Premature mortality from air pollution is associated with some degree of morbidity that needs to be accounted for in welfare economic assessments. This article explores whether health-related quality of life measures are useful for this purpose. While the metrics of QALY (quality adjusted life-years) and DALY (disability adjusted life-years) are routinely applied for assessments in the health sector, they have not yet been integrated into impact assessments of society-level preventive measures. This paper traces the origins of these metrics, recaps their differences and considers the opportunities and challenges for wider use in integrated environmental-economic assessments.