About Optiqal

What is Optiqal?

Optiqal is an educational tool that estimates Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) to help you understand how lifestyle factors may affect your healthspan. By combining actuarial life expectancy data with health-related quality of life research, Optiqal provides a more complete picture of healthy life expectancy than mortality statistics alone.

QALYs weight years of life by health quality, where 1 QALY represents one year lived in perfect health. This framework helps illustrate the potential impact of various risk factors on both how long you might live and how well you might live.

Data Sources

Our estimates are built on peer-reviewed research and official statistics:

• CDC Life Tables — U.S. mortality data providing baseline life expectancy by age and sex
• Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 — Risk factor relative risks and population attributable fractions
• Published Meta-Analyses — Peer-reviewed studies on lifestyle factors and health outcomes

Statistical Methods

Optiqal generates personalized predictions by applying hazard ratios from meta-analyses to your individual profile. We use Monte Carlo simulation to propagate uncertainty through the model, producing prediction intervals that reflect the limits of current research. The uncertainty bounds are just as important as the point estimates—they tell you how certain we can be given existing evidence.

Not medical advice. Our predictions are statistical, not clinical. They show what research suggests for someone with your profile but cannot account for your complete medical history. Discuss health decisions with your doctor.

Open Source

Optiqal is open source. You can view the code, methodology, and contribute on GitHub. We welcome feedback, bug reports, and contributions from the community.