potential life, a criterion used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to gauge premature death rates. Among younger individuals, it is based on an assumption that the person would have lived to 65 years of age if life had not been interrupted by a particular disease or injury. The leading cause of loss of potential life in young people is accidents, followed by cancer and heart disease. For older people the system is based on years of potential life lost before 85 years of age, in which case cancer and heart disease rank first and second.
