Report of the New South Wales Chief Health Officer, 1997

Graphic: Life Expectancy/Deaths - PYLL
Note: Cause-deleted potential years of life lost were calculated from the 1994 NSW current life table. Cause of death was classified according to ICD-9 chapter headings using the codes 000 to 799 or using the injuinjury/poisoning external cause codes E800-869 E880-929 E950-999.
Source:ABS mortality data (HOIST), Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, NSW Health Department.
 Potential years of life lost (PYLL) before the age of 75 is a measure of premature mortality. It emphasises diseases or conditions which cause death among younger people. The potential years of life lost shown here are calculated by subtracting the total number of years up to the age of 75 which a group of 100,000 males or females would be expected to live from the total number of years the same group would be expected to live if no-one in that group died of the disease or conditions specified. This is known as cause-deleted potential years of life lost. More details of the method of calculation appear in the methods section.

Among major categories of cause of death, cancers were the largest cause of PYLL in females, followed by injury and poisoning and circulatory diseases. For males, injury and poisoning was the largest category of causes of PYLL, followed by cancers and circulatory diseases.

Among individual causes of death, breast cancer was the single largest cause of PYLL in females (21,063 PYLL), followed by ischaemic heart disease (14,525), motor vehicle traffic accidents (13,340), lung cancer (8,469) and suicide (7,757). Ischaemic heart disease was the single largest cause of PYLL in males (46,882 PYLL), followed by suicide (37,429), motor vehicle traffic accidents (27,183), lung cancer (17,811) and colorectal cancer (10,646).

More information on PYLL due to individual cancers is available.

For more information see: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Produced by Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, Public Health Division, New South Wales Health Department on 20 March 1998.