{"id":34491,"date":"2026-08-26T15:48:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:48:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=34491"},"modified":"2026-08-25T19:06:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:06:00","slug":"university-of-eastern-finland-contributes-to-the-development-of-a-new-international-measure-for-assessing-productivity-adjusted-life-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2026\/08\/university-of-eastern-finland-contributes-to-the-development-of-a-new-international-measure-for-assessing-productivity-adjusted-life-years\/","title":{"rendered":"University of Eastern Finland contributes to the development of a new international measure for assessing productivity-adjusted life years"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time in Finland, population-level norm values have been established for estimating life expectancy adjusted for health-related functional capacity and productivity. The new study provides Finnish norm values for both everyday functioning and work ability, as well as for a newly developed measure, productivity-adjusted life expectancy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The study is part of an international effort to develop standardised measures that enable comparisons across countries. Similar population-level norm values have previously been reported in Australia and Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal is to develop an internationally comparable measure that considers not only how long people live, but also how well they are able to participate in society, working life, household activities, and other daily functions. The Finnish results are an important addition to this work,\u201d says\u00a0Professor Janne Martikainen<\/strong>, the scientific lead of the study, from the University of Eastern Finland.<\/p>\n

Functional capacity and work ability assessed across the adult population<\/strong><\/p>\n

The data were derived from a population survey conducted in summer 2024, including\u00a03,644 Finnish adults aged 20 to 79 years. The sample was representative of the Finnish adult population in terms of both geographic distribution and demographic characteristics.<\/p>\n

The researchers developed a\u00a0weighted productivity index\u00a0ranging from\u00a00 to 1, where 1\u00a0represents perfect functioning and work ability, and 0\u00a0represents complete inability to perform daily activities or work. For example, a coefficient of\u00a00.80\u00a0indicates that a person functions, on average, at approximately\u00a080% of full capacity\u00a0because of illnesses or health conditions.<\/p>\n

The average weighted productivity index for the Finnish adult population was\u00a00.77. The index was\u00a00.78 for men\u00a0and\u00a00.76 for women.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn health economic evaluations, the consequences of ill health are usually considered primarily from the perspective of paid employment. We wanted to also account for household work, caregiving, and other unpaid activities, which form a substantial part of people\u2019s daily lives and contribute significantly to societal functioning. However, their value often remains invisible in economic assessments and is not reflected, for example, in gross domestic product,\u201d explains\u00a0Senior Researcher Piia Lavikainen<\/strong>, the principal investigator of the study.<\/p>\n

A new measure combining life expectancy with functional capacity and productivity<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study also estimated\u00a0Productivity-Adjusted Life Expectancy (PALE), a measure that combines population life expectancy<\/strong> with information on losses in functioning and productivity caused by health conditions.<\/p>\n

Although a\u00a020-year-old Finnish man\u00a0can be expected to live to approximately\u00a080 years of age, and a\u00a020-year-old Finnish woman\u00a0to approximately\u00a085 years of age, productivity-adjusted life expectancy was estimated at 42.9 years for men and 46.1 years for women.<\/p>\n

This measure reflects the number of years individuals can expect to participate in daily activities and work\u00a0without limitations in functioning or productivity attributable to health problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraditional life expectancy tells us how long people live. This measure additionally indicates how many years of their remaining lives people can expect to live with good functioning and productivity, considering both paid and unpaid productive activities and the reductions caused by health conditions,\u201d says Martikainen<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A new tool for assessing the societal impact of diseases<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the researchers, the new norm values provide an important benchmark for evaluating the impact of diseases and health problems on functioning and productivity at the population level. The reference values can be used for assessing the economic burden of diseases, comparing differences between population groups, evaluating the effectiveness of health and welfare policies, and quantifying losses in functioning and productivity associated with specific diseases. The age- and sex-specific norm values make it possible to compare disease-related losses in functioning and productivity against the expected levels in the general population. Furthermore, the findings support international collaborative efforts aimed at developing and harmonising measures such as productivity-adjusted life expectancy to better assess the broader societal impacts of health.<\/p>\n

The data were collected within the\u00a0PREcision promotion of positive mental WELLbeing among high-risk adult population (PREWELL): Capabilities, gamification, and digital intervention<\/a>consortium, funded by the\u00a0Next Generation EU\u00a0programme.<\/p>\n

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JOURNAL<\/h4>\n

Social Science & Medicine<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time in Finland, population-level norm values have been established for estimating life expectancy adjusted for health-related functional capacity and productivity. The new study provides Finnish norm values for both everyday functioning and work ability, as well as for a newly developed measure, productivity-adjusted life expectancy. The study is part of an international… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[335,907],"tags":[16,234,908,909,238],"class_list":["post-34491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-2","category-population","tag-aging","tag-genetics","tag-life-expectancy","tag-population","tag-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34493,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34491\/revisions\/34493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}