DALYs and QALYs are used in public health decision making primarily to do what?

• A. To compare interventions
• B. To calculate hospital billing
• C. To measure provider productivity
• D. To estimate vaccine efficacy in trials

Answer: (A)

DALYs and QALYs are health outcome measures that combine how long people live with the quality of that life. They’re used in public health decision making to compare the overall health benefits of different interventions, often within a cost-effectiveness framework. By putting health gains into a common unit, these measures help policymakers see which interventions provide more years of healthy life for the cost, guiding resource allocation when choices are limited. They aren’t meant for hospital billing, measuring provider productivity, or estimating vaccine efficacy in trials, which rely on other methods and endpoints.