PERSONAL HEALTH : The Lost Years: A Measure of Illness

Health experts measure the cost of illness and trauma not just by the death toll but by the waste of years: The younger the dying person, the greater the waste.

Using that measure, called YPLL or years of potential life lost, federal disease-watchers at the Centers for Disease Control rank the most wasteful causes of death.

Such a ranking tends to emphasize killers of the young, compared with heart disease and cancer, which strike older people more than children. The top three killers in YPLL before age 65 are unintentional injuries (such as highway crashes, falls and burns), cancer and intentional injuries (homicide and suicide).

Here’s the latest toll, according to the CDC’s weekly report:

* Unintentional injuries accounted for 18%.

* Cancer: 15% of YPLL.

* Intentional injuries, (homicide and suicide): 13%.

* Heart disease: 11%.

* Birth defects: 5%.

* AIDS: 5%.

* Premature birth: 3%.

* Sudden infant death syndrome: 3%.

* Stroke: 2%.

* Liver disease: 2%.

* Pneumonia, influenza: 1%.

* Diabetes: 1%.

* Lung disease: 1%.

Between 1989 and 1990, the YPLL before age 65 rose for five causes of death and fell for nine. The sharpest increases were in AIDS and intentional injuries; sharpest declines were in premature births, pneumonia and influenza, chronic liver disease and unintentional injuries.