Mortality (health and wellbeing needs in South Tyneside)
Potential Years of Life Lost
Potential years of life lost (PYLL), is an estimate of the average years a person would have lived if he or she had not died prematurely.
It is, therefore, a measure of premature mortality. As an alternative to death rates, it is a method that gives more weight to deaths that occur among younger people.
The NHS Outcome tool (http://tools.england.nhs.uk/ccgoutcomes/html/atlas.html) includes indicators for potential years of life lost for both the male and female population at CCG Level.
The indicator provides an age standardised rate of years lost per 100,000 registered patients. Age standardisation makes it possible to compare areas which have different demographic age profiles. A population with a higher than normal rate of people in their 20s would be likely to see a different set of health issues to a population with a disproportionate number of people in their 60s.
The concept of amenable and preventable mortality is based on the idea that certain deaths could be 'avoided', that means would not have occurred at this stage, if there had been more effective public health and medical interventions in place.
A death can be considered as amenable if it could have been avoided through optimal quality health care. Preventable deaths are broader and includes deaths which could have been avoided by changes to behaviour and lifestyle factors, socioeconomic status and environmental factors.
Potential years of life lost in South Tyneside from causes considered amenable to healthcare (per 100,000 directly standardised rate)
| Gender | South Tyneside | England |
| Female | 2,215 | 1,869 |
| Male | 2,582 | 2,262 |
- While males have more potential years of life lost than females there is not a statistically significant difference.
- Females in South Tyneside are among the worst quartile in England, with 2,215 years of life lost per 100,000 population compared to 1,868 in England.
- Despite both genders having a higher number of years lost than the England average neither were statistically different to the national rate.
Supporting information can be found in the appendices.