Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) is a measure of the rate of premature death. This value for 2022 is calculated using data from 2019-2021 for this measure.  Preventing deaths among children and adolescents has the biggest impact in improving years of potential life lost. Many City of Austin departments, including Austin Public Health and Austin Transportation, conduct activities to reduce the number of deaths in children and adolescents. In addition to addressing deaths in children and adolescents, YPLL is highest among Black Travis County Residents. To improve this measure, work focusing on addressing these health disparities expeirneced by Black communities will have the largest impact. 

There has been a steady decrease in the rate of Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL) since 2017 until an increase in 2021. 2022 saw the highest YPLL since 2017. This measure would reflect mortality related to COVID.  Since this measure combines three years of data, we will expect to see this increase as this measure captures the impact of COVID-19 on life expectancy.  This measure is most greatly influenced by preventing premature death in children and adolescents. The City of Austin aims to improve this measure through programs that prevent premature death and address racial health disparities. 

Austin Public Health's Maternal Infant Outreach Program (MIOP) provides peer support and advocacy to African American women who are pregnant in efforts to address and eliminate racial disparities in birth outcomes and improve maternal and infant health. MIOP Community Health Workers are paired with expecting mothers and provide one-on-one support through home visits, navigation of social services, and overall maternal and infant health education throughout pregnancy and up until the baby’s first birthday. MIOP’s mission to create a village of healthy Black moms, healthy Black babies, and healthy Black families, is supported by a program focus on at-term births, healthy infant weight, breastfeeding, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) screening, and postpartum health visits. The program achieves program goals by utilizing evidence based curriculum, Healthy Start, through a reproductive social justice lens.

Vaccine-preventable diseases, such as COVID-19, pertussis, influenza, and chickenpox, can result in premature deaths.  Through immunization clinics, Austin Public Health offers immunizations to children, and some adults, to provide protection against these diseases.  Austin Public Health provides no-cost vaccines to medical providers in Travis County for vaccinating children who might not be vaccinated because of an inability to pay. Additionally, APH audits the immunizations records of ISD students to ensure compliance with state laws as well as to protect their health and safety.

Austin Public Health's Injury Prevention Program works to prevent unintentional injuries across the lifespan.  The program focuses on drowning prevention, promotion of safe sleep, prevention of motor vehicle injuries, and prevention of falls.  This is accomplished through distribution of car seats and car seat safety checks, education provided to health care providers, individuals and families (including curricula such as the Stepping On falls prevention program), and participation in Community and City Collaborations such as SafeKids Coalition, Vision Zero, and the Central Texas Drowning Prevention Action Team.  A focus is on policy, systems, and environmental change approaches.

Austin Transportation's Vision Zero program recognizes the human aspect of this challenge, knowing that the data points represent real people in our community.  The program began using Years of Life Lost as a key performance measure for public reporting, connecting the bigger societal impact which comes from losing our younger community members in a fatal traffic crash and how they will not be able to celebrate any more birthdays and holidays with their family and friends.  Establishing the metric as a part of the Vision Zero program was the first step, and moving forward, it will be utilized to measure progress over time for the Vision Zero program and as these years contribute to the citywide Years of Preventable Life Lost metric. 

Note: To see the underlying data for this chart, please select the "View Source Data" link.

Date page was last updated: April 2023