Comparing data sources in estimating disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for ischemic heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in a cross-sectional setting in Finland.

Especially for COPD, all mild disease cases could probably not be identified from the included registers. Thereby, including survey data improved the coverage of the data. The YLD of IHD and COPD varied markedly between the data sources used in the calculations. However, as YLL constituted a major part of DALYs for these diseases, the variation in YLD did not lead to substantial variation in DALYs.