Inauthenticity Sucks Your Life Dry – Literally
A measure of the amount of time, in years, lost to any form of impairment/disability/disorder across population groups, in this case specifically a mental disability, is called the “Disability‑Adjusted Life Years” (DALY) measure. It is a population-level estimate derived from multiple sources including global surveys, clinical expert panels, patient‑reported outcome studies, cross‑cultural comparisons, functional impairment scoring, quality‑of‑life instruments – all used in research across thousands of people. Years may be lost thereof due to premature death or, despite being lived with the disorder [called “Years Lived with Disorder/Disability” (YLD)], the patient may be incapacitated from various life-activities, e.g., establishing and maintaining social and romantic relationships, ability to work or keep a job, degree of mobility, cognition or self-care etc.
DALY Calculation
| Severity | Duration: YLD | Number of People Affected |
| Quantified using disability weights, which are: – numerical values between 0 and 1 derived from global surveys – based on functional impairment, not feelings Examples of disability weights Depression Mild: 0.15 to 0.35 Moderate: 0.35 to 0.45 Severe: 0.45 to 0.66 So, severe depression, if 0.66, is considered two‑thirds as disabling as death. | How long, on average, people live with the disorder. | Self-descriptive |
DALY = Severity x YLD or Duration x Number of People Affected
As you can see below per the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) dataset, the number of ‘healthy’ years lost, as demonstrative of the burden thereof, by the South African population has been increasing over the years:
| Depression | Anxiety |
| 2017: ~650,000 2019: ~680,000 2020: ~720,000 2021: ~760,000 2023: ~810,000 2024 ~ 830,000 – projected based on trend 2025 ~ 855,000 – projected based on trend 2026 ~ 880,000 – projected based on trend | 2017: ~420,000 2019: ~450,000 2020: ~480,000 2021: ~510,000 2023: ~540,000 2024 ~ 555,000 – projected based on trend 2025 ~ 570,000 – projected based on trend 2026 ~ 585,000 – projected based on trend |
2024/5 dataset yet to be published.