Avoidable mortality measured by years of potential life lost (YPLL) aged 5 before 65 years in Kyrgyzstan, 1989-2003.

There is considerable willingness in the entire medical society of Kyrgyzstan, which was directly involved in the reform process, to obtain reliable information about changes in population health that have occurred in the last decade, as well as about changes in mortality, which is the basic component of population health. The objective of this paper is to introduce the Year of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) in Kyrgyzstan caused by avoidable mortality in the population between 5 and 65 years of age during 1989-2003, and to provide a basis for setting the priorities for the reducing YPLL in the coming years. YPLL was calculated using data from the annual mortality tables according to causes of deaths and age for 1989, 1996, 1999 and 2003. YPLL is defined as the summation of the difference between 65 years of age and the age at death from the age of 5 and before 65. In 2003, the total number of YPLL due to avoidable mortality among those who died was 216,860, which represents a decline of 5.0% in comparison with 228,266 in 1989. During the study years, the largest proportion of YPLL in the population between 5 and 65 years of age resulted from injury and poisoning. In 2003, this proportion represented 41.5% of the total amount of YPLL due to all the causes studied here, followed by infections and parasitic diseases (12.0%), circulatory disturbance of the brain (11.5%), chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis (11.4%), diseases of the respiratory system (9.2%), and malignant neoplasm of the upper airways and digestive tract (4.6%). The decline in avoidable mortality caused by injury and poisoning, infections disease, malignant neoplasm of the female breast and uterus has to be priority-driven direction for developing Health Policy in the coming years in Kyrgyzstan. Attention also has to be given to reducing of avoidable mortality caused by malignant neoplasm of the female breast by implementing screening programs.