Paper #275

Title:

Comparison and evaluation of states of health

Authors:

Carmen Herrero, José Luis Pinto and Han Bleichrodt

Date:

December 1997 (Revised: March 1998)

Abstract:

Starting from a finite or countable set of states of health, and assuming the existence of an objective transitive preference relation on that set, we propose a way of performing interpersonal comparisons of states of health. In so doing, we first consider the population divided into types, and consider that two individuals of a different type have a comparable state of health whenever they sit at the same centile of their respective type. A way of comparing and evaluating states of health for different groups is then proposed and rationalized. This can be viewed as both an alternative and an extension of the traditional QALY approach.

Keywords:

QALY, states of health, comparison, types

JEL codes:

I10, H51

Area of Research:

Labour, Public, Development and Health Economics

Published in:

Journal of Health Economics, 1, 7, (2002)
With the title:
A Proposal to Solve the Comparability Problem in Cost-Utility Analysis

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