This white paper reviews methods used by agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO) to measure overall population health, and the total population harm caused by health risks such as alcohol. The paper explains measures including: burden of disease (BoD), health-related quality of life (HRQL), quality adjusted life years (QALY), disability adjusted life years (DALY), and years lost to disability (YLD). Recently, the QALY measure was used to measure populated-level gambling harm in New Zealand and in Victoria, Australia. These projects used the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) to measure gambling severity, but there are limitations to this application as the PGSI was developed as a clinical screening tool and not for population assessment. This paper discusses recent work that addresses the limitations of current gambling harm assessment tools, and recommendations for the development of new aggregate-level harm indicators.
