The Economics Network

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Limitations of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs)

In this short video Joanna Coast talks about some concerns with the use of QALYs in health care decision-making, focusing particularly on the narrowness of the QALY measure with its focus on health benefits to the patient. Duration 4'56".

These issues are further explored in: Coast J. "Is economic evaluation in touch with society’s health values?" British Medical Journal. 2004; 329: 1233-1236; Coast J, Flynn TN, Sutton E, Al-Janabi H, Vosper J, Lavender S, Louviere JJ, Peters TJ. "Investigating choice experiments for preferences of older people (ICEPOP): evaluative spaces in health economics." Journal of Health Services Research & Policy. 2008; 13 Suppl 3:31-37.

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Health Economics education