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Thinking about it: thoughts about health and valuing QALYs

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  • Paul Dolan

Abstract

When valuing health states (e.g. for use in the assessment of health technologies), health economists often ask respondents how many years of life in poor health they would be willing to trade‐off in order to live in full health. Problems with preferences of this kind have led to calls for the use of more direct measures of the utility associated with experiencing a health state. The fact remains, however, that individuals are often willing to make large sacrifices in life expectancy to alleviate conditions for which there appears to be a considerable degree of hedonic adaptation. The purpose of this study is to investigate this important discrepancy in more detail. Data from 1173 internet and telephone surveys in the United States suggest that time trade‐off responses are related to the frequency and intensity of negative thoughts about health in ways that may not be very well captured by any of the proposed valuation methods. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Paul Dolan, 2011. "Thinking about it: thoughts about health and valuing QALYs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(12), pages 1407-1416, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:20:y:2011:i:12:p:1407-1416
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.1679
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Paul Dolan & Daniel Kahneman, 2008. "Interpretations Of Utility And Their Implications For The Valuation Of Health," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 215-234, January.
    2. Dolan, Paul, 2000. "The measurement of health-related quality of life for use in resource allocation decisions in health care," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 32, pages 1723-1760, Elsevier.
    3. Fisher, Irving, 1918. "Is "Utility" the Most Suitable Term for the Concept It is Used to Denote?," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 8, pages 335-337.
    4. G. Ardine De Wit & Jan J.V. Busschbach & Frank Th. De Charro, 2000. "Sensitivity and perspective in the valuation of health status: whose values count?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(2), pages 109-126, March.
    5. Peter A. Ubel & George Loewenstein & John Hershey & Jonathan Baron & Tara Mohr & David A. Asch & Christopher Jepson, 2001. "Do Nonpatients Underestimate the Quality of Life Associated with Chronic Health Conditions because of a Focusing Illusion?," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 21(3), pages 190-199, May.
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    2. John Brazier & Donna Rowen & Milad Karimi & Tessa Peasgood & Aki Tsuchiya & Julie Ratcliffe, 2018. "Experience-based utility and own health state valuation for a health state classification system: why and how to do it," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(6), pages 881-891, July.
    3. Hernández-Alava, Mónica & Sampson, Christopher & Wailoo, Allan, 2013. "Happy and healthy: a joint model of health and life satisfaction," MPRA Paper 49766, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Floortje Nooten & Jan Busschbach & Michel Agthoven & Job Exel & Werner Brouwer, 2018. "What should we know about the person behind a TTO?," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(9), pages 1207-1211, December.

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