Haemorrhage of gross domestic product from disability-adjusted-life-years among 15-59 year olds in Kenya

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. Key words: Non-health GDP, economic haemorrhage, disability-adjusted life year (DALY)