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QALY‐maximisation and public preferences: results from a general population survey
Author(s) -
Bryan Stirling,
Roberts Tracy,
Heginbotham Chris,
McCallum Alison
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.695
Subject(s) - odds , quality adjusted life year , marginal utility , preference , population , survey data collection , actuarial science , economics , revealed preference , health economics , value (mathematics) , health care , medicine , econometrics , cost effectiveness , statistics , microeconomics , logistic regression , environmental health , economic growth , mathematics , operations management
The appropriate criteria that should be used in setting priorities in a publicly funded health care system remain open to debate. From a health economics perspective, quality‐adjusted life years (QALYs) are increasingly portrayed as a measure of societal value and the criterion of QALY maximisation is then advocated. This paper reports a study that investigated the extent to which some of the assumptions underlying the QALY maximisation approach, notably constant marginal societal value for increases in the size of health programmes, the level of risk, and the level of benefit are supported by members of the public. A general population interview‐based survey was conducted. The survey design employed conjoint methods. In general, the public preference data from this study, in themselves, are not much at odds with the core proportionality assumptions concerning societal value in the QALY maximisation model assumptions. The data are, however, at odds with reports from various previous studies. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.