INTRODUCTION: The DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) is the unit of measurement of disease burden, allow to estimate the health losses for a population with regard to fatal and nonfatal disease. METHODS: The study followed the methodology of the Global Burden of Disease 2001. To calculate DALYs are first generated inputs: Years lived with disability and years of life lost to premature death for which there was a current life table for overall mortality and took the prevalence of diseases for morbidity. RESULTS: The rate of DALYs estimated in this study was of 246 DALYs per thousand, corresponding to 366,678 DALYss total, concentrated mostly in group II disease with a total of 228 DALYs per thousand inhabitants, followed by group I with 17.3 DALYs per thousand inhabitants, and with lower participation, group III with 0.6 DALYs. DALYss dependent on mortality was 2.4 per thousand people and 244 disability. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in both genders ranked first as DALYs disease generates. DISCUSSION: 17% of DALYs in this study belong to group I, a figure that approaches that in our country. The lowest percentage weight is in the number of DALYs group III, both for Colombia and for the EPS The studys limitations are related to data quality of mortality records.
