Scientists have said applying a technique often used to assess the disease burden by pathogens to chemicals is “feasible but complicated.” The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) investigated the possibility of using the approach to estimate and compare the health impacts of foodborne chemicals. The health impacts of chemicals in food can be represented in terms of health loss (burden of disease).
The burden of disease is expressed in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). DALYs indicate the loss of healthy years of life due to disease or premature death. In this way, the effects of chemicals can be compared with one another.
The DALY approach has been used regularly to quantify the disease burden caused by foodborne pathogens. Food can contain chemicals that have harmful effects on human health. The severity of these effects can vary from headaches to serious illnesses.
If the different effects can be compared, policymakers can then use this knowledge to make informed choices to reduce people’s contact with harmful chemicals in food. Calculating the burden of disease I n 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed an approach to calculate the disease burden from chemicals in food. However, the method was not explained in detail, and DALYs were calculated in different ways.
This makes it difficult to compare the DALYs from these studies. The DALY methodology contains various parameters. Choices can be made whether to in- or exclude .