Background: This article estimates non-health gross domestic product (GDP) losses associated with Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) lost among 15-59 year olds (most productive age bracket) in Kenya in 2015.Methods: This study employs the lost output or human capital approach (HCA) to convert the DALYs lost from all causes into their monetary equivalents. The magnitude economic haemorrhage from each disease was obtained by multiplying the per capita non-health GDP in International Dollars by the total number of DALYs lost in a specific age group (15-29 years, 30-49 years, 50-59 years). Per capita non-health GDP equals per capita GDP minus total health expenditure in 2015. Data on DALYs and per capita total health expenditure were obtained from the World Health Organization and per capita GDP data was from IMF databases.Results: Kenya lost 9,405,184 DALYs among 15-59 years olds in 2015.That DALY loss caused a haemorrhage in GDP of Int$ 29,788,392,419. Approximately 48.6% of the GDP haemorrhage resulted from communicable diseases and nutritional conditions, 37.4% from non-communicable diseases, and 14.0% from injuries.
Conclusion:There is need to augment domestic and external investments into national health systems and other systems that meet basic needs (education, food, water, sanitation, shelter) to reduce disease burden. In the same year the country lost a total of 21,854,898 Disability-Adjusted-Life-Years (DALYs) from all causes. Out of that total DALY loss, 59% were from communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions; 30% from non-communicable diseases (NCDs); and 11% from intentional and unintentional injuries. About 54% and 46% the total DALYs lost occurred in male and female gender respectively.
Haemorrhage of Gross DomesticThe total DALYs losses were distributed unevenly across various age groups: 33.2% among 0-4 year-old; 13.6% among 5-14 year-old; 18.5% among 15-29 year-old; 18.8% among 30-49 yearold; 5.7% among 50-59 year-old; 5.1% among 60-69 year-old; and 5.1% among those aged 70 years and above [1]. Thus, 43% of the depletion in health or human capital was sustained by the most economically and socially productive age bracket of 15-59 years. The current study focuses on this age bracket.The large loss in DALYs has been attributed to weaknesses in national and local health systems responsible for providing quality health services [2,3]; systems that assure access to other basic needs (food, water, sanitation, education, clothing, shelter) or social determinants of health [4,5]; and national health research system that produces knowledge and facilitates its use in development of discoveries and innovations aimed at addressing health and socioeconomic needs [6,7].Various studies have attempted to estimate the productivity losses attributable to premature mortality from one or a group of disasters, diseases and health conditions in the WHO African Region (AFR). A study conducted in 2004 used regression modelling to estimate the impact of disaster-related mortality on gross d...