Lost Output by Road Traffic Injuries in Iran, an Estimate Based on Disability-Adjusted Life Years Index

The main objective of this study is to estimate a part of road traffic injury costs including costs due to fatality and disability, which are related to lost social products. Lost output consists of costs, which are related to losses of national product or lost-income in death, hospitalization or physical disabilities. In recent years, the Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) has been used as an appropriate criterion to measure mortality and disability burden from different diseases. The DALYs index for a definite disease is defined as total years of life lost due to a premature death (YLL) and the years lost due to disability (YLD) for the disease. The distribution of fatalities and disabilities in age intervals takes advantage of official references including Legal Medicine Organization reports on road fatalities and Harvard University surveys in road-crash-related disability dispersion in Iran. According to this distribution, life expectancy can be determined for the used age distribution in this study. This study indicates that the highest amount of the life years lost due to road fatalities belongs to the age range of 11-29 years old in Iran for whom, an average value of lost useful life is estimated more than 12 years. The total output value or lost product due to death or disabilities by traffic injuries is estimated approximately 1.4 Billion USD in 2011. As a social cumulative criterion, it stands for the second cost contributing factor after medical costs. The study has shown that the lost output is identified as the main part of costs imposed on each individual killed by a road traffic injury.