PSI

PSI evaluates the health impact of its interventions using a variety of metrics and research tools and has an aggressive goal of doubling its health impact between 2007 and 2011. PSI aims to avert 22 million Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) in 2011 including preventing 350,000 HIV infections, 465,000 deaths from malaria, 95,000 deaths from diarrhea and 15.3 million unintended pregnancies annually.

The Disability Adjusted Life Year, or DALY, is PSI’s performance metric used to estimate the health impact of its products and behavior change interventions, and to inform programmatic decision-making. PSI adopted the DALY in 2006 to align its performance metrics with the international public health community. The DALY is a widely-used measure that was developed jointly by the World Bank and the World Health Organization in 1993 to measure the burden of disease. It combines the years of life lost to death and the years of life spent with disability to give an overall estimate of the burden of disease. These estimates incorporate local epidemiology and demography; the best evidence available on protective efficacy and lifespan of each intervention program; program specific process inputs such as waste and misuse of products, and adherence and compliance by users.

The DALY provides many advantages as a performance metric, allowing PSI to:

• Translate its inputs - product distribution, services and health communications - into a widely accepted measure of health outcome that is recognized among many external partners and funders.
• Evaluate and compare the relative effectiveness of all its interventions. Unlike deaths, episodes or infections, DALYs can be used to estimate an aggregate health impact for countries.
• Measure the increased benefit of reaching high-risk populations and reward targeted interventions.
• Compare the cost-effectiveness of different interventions in different contexts, and to its success against globally recognized standards and benchmarks.
• Gauge its contribution relative to the estimated global burden of disease by geographic region or health area and explicitly link its health impact to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Related links

• Measuring the Impact of
  Behavior Change Communications
• Health Impact Reports
• DALY FAQ

• Significant Involvement Policy
• Significant Involvement Policy - Activity Checklist
• Estimating Potential Impact of New Interventions
• Burden of Disease Estimates