Despite progress, discrimination in public health remains a problem. A significant aspect of this problem relates to how medical resources are allocated. The paradigm of quality-adjusted-life-year (QALY) dictates that medical resources should be allocated on the basis of units measured as length of life and quality of life that are expected after the implementation of a treatment. In this article, I discuss some of the ethical shortcomings of QALY, by focusing on some of its flawed moral aspects, as well as the way it relates to discrimination on the basis of age, race, and disability status. I argue that while this approach seeks to maximize efficiency, it does not place sufficient value on the preservation of life itself. Even more concerning is the fact that the use of QALY disproportionately harms minorities. While QALY is a well-intentioned approach to the allocation of scarce healthcare resources, new alternatives must be sought.

This paper argues that cost-effectiveness analysis in the healthcare sector introduces a discrimination risk that has thus far been underappreciated and outlines some approaches one can take toward this. It is argued that appropriate standards used in cost-effectiveness analysis in the healthcare sector fail to always fully determine an optimal option, which entails that cost-effectiveness analysis often leaves decision makers with large sets of permissible options. Larger sets of permissible options increase the role of decision makers’ biases, whims, and prejudices, which means that the discrimination risk increases. Two ways of mitigating this are identified: tinkering with standards used in the cost-effectiveness analysis and outlining anti-discrimination guidelines for decision makers.

Many ethical theorists believe that a given distribution of healthcare is morally justified only if (1) it is cost-effective and (2) it does not discriminate against older adults and disabled people. However, if (3) cost-effectiveness involves maximizing the number of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) added by a given unit of healthcare resource, or cost, it seems the pursuit of cost-effectiveness will inevitably discriminate against older adults and disabled patients. I show why this trilemma is harder to escape than some theorists think. We cannot avoid it by using age- or disability-weighted QALY scores, for example. I then explain why there is no sense of “discrimination” on which discrimination is both unjust, and thus something healthcare rationing must avoid, and something cost-effective healthcare rationing inevitably involves. I go on to argue that many of the reasons we have for not favoring rationing that maximizes QALYs outside the healthcare context apply in healthcare as well. Thus, claim (1) above is dubious.

Many economic measures are structured to reflect ethical values. I describe three attitudes towards this: maximalism, according to which we should aim to build all relevant values into measures; minimalism, according to which we should aim to keep values out of measures; and an intermediate view. I argue the intermediate view is likely correct, but existing versions are inadequate. In particular, economists have strong reason to structure measures to reflect fixed, as opposed to user-assessable, values. This implies that, despite disagreement about precisely how to do so, economists should standardly adjust QALYs and DALYs to reflect egalitarian values.

As campylobacteriosis is one of the most important foodborne infections, a European Union (EU)-27 level cost-effectiveness model has been developed on the socio-economic costs and benefits of applying certain control measures for the reduction of Campylobacter in broiler meat. This is expected to be a gold standard for food safety policymakers in the EU; hence, the validity of its modelling assumptions is essential. The authors of the present paper conducted an independent review of model input parameters on health and economic burden and found that the model most probably overestimated the burden of human campylobacteriosis. A discounted, quality-adjusted life year (QALY)-based European estimate has been developed for human campylobacteriosis and resulted in 15.23 QALY loss per 1000 human gastroenteritis cases. Country-specific cost of illness estimates have been developed for various countries in the EU-27. Based on these model adaptations, a selected Campylobacter control strategy was re-assessed and its high cost-effectiveness was confirmed at the EU level, and also in all but three Member States. Bacteriocin treatment or vaccination of the animals, two alternative control measures were also re-evaluated, and these strategies seemed to be far less cost-effective than the investigated strategy. Putative barriers to the rapid implementation of the investigated Campylobacter control strategy are discussed, and potential solutions are proposed. Further research is required on stakeholder perspectives pertaining to the realistic barriers and implementation opportunities.

Given that a properly formed utilitarian response to healthcare distribution issues should evaluate cost effectiveness against the total utility increase, it follows that any utilitarian cost-effectiveness metric should be sensitive to increases in both individual and social utility afforded by a given intervention. Quality adjusted life year (QALY) based decisionmaking in healthcare cannot track increases in social utility, and as a result, the QALY cannot be considered a strict utilitarian response to issues of healthcare distribution. This article considers arguments against, and a possible defence of, the QALY as a utilitarian concept; in response, the article offers a similar — but properly formed — utilitarian metric called the (IALY). This article also advances a tool called the ‘glee factor’ (GF) on which the IALY may lean in a similar way to which the QALY leans on the Rosser Index.

The value of health states is often understood to depend on their impact on the goodness of people's lives. As such, prominent health states metrics are grounded in particular conceptions of wellbeing – e.g. hedonism or preference satisfaction. In this paper, I consider how liberals committed to the public justification requirement – the requirement that public officials choose laws and policies that are justifiable to their citizens – should evaluate health states. Since the public justification requirement prohibits public officials from appealing to controversial conceptions of the good life, liberals committed to this principle face a significant puzzle.

One widely used method for allocating health care resources involves the use of cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) to rank treatments in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained. CEA has been criticized for discriminating against people with disabilities by valuing their lives less than those of non-disabled people. Avoiding discrimination seems to lead to the 'QALY trap': we cannot value saving lives equally and still value raising quality of life. This paper reviews existing responses to the QALY trap and argues that all are problematic. Instead, we argue that adopting a moderate form of prioritarianism avoids the QALY trap and disability discrimination.

Objectives: In many economic evaluations and reimbursement decisions, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) are used as a measure of benefit to assess effectiveness of novel therapies, often based on the EQ-5D 3-level questionnaire. As only five dimensions of physical and mental well-being are reflected in this tool, significant aspects of the patient experience may be missed. We evaluate the use of the EQ-5D as a measurement of clinical change across a wide range of disorders from dermatological (acne) to life-threatening (metastatic cancers).

Methods: We analyze published studies on the psychometric properties of the EQ-5D 3-level questionnaire, extracting information on the Visual Analogue Scale versus Index score, Standardized Response Mean, and Effect Size. These are compared with ranges generally accepted to represent good responsiveness in the psychometric literature.

Results: We find that only approximately one in five study populations report subjective health state valuation of patients within 5 percent of the score attributed by the EQ-5D index, and more than 40 percent of studies report unacceptable ceiling effects. In the majority of studies, responsiveness of the EQ-5D index was found to be poor to moderate, based on Effect Size (63 percent poor–moderate) and Standardized Response Mean (72 percent poor–moderate).

Conclusions: We conclude that the EQ-5D index does not adequately reflect patient health status across a range of conditions, and it is likely that a significant proportion of the subjective patient experience is not accounted for by the index. This has implications for economic evaluations of novel drugs based on evidence generated with the EQ-5D.

The risk of dying in fires in nursing homes is six times the risk of dying in fires at home in Sweden. One way to reduce this risk is to install fire sprinklers. This study measures the benefits using value of full lives, life years and quality adjusted life years (QALYs) for deaths and injuries. The results show that sprinklers are cost-effective in newly built nursing homes no matter what value of life is used. However, if sprinklers are installed in already existing buildings, they are cost-effective only if the value of a statistical life is used.

Varicella-zoster virus causes chickenpox (CP) and after reactivation herpes zoster (HZ). Vaccines are available against both diseases warranting an assessment of the pre-vaccination burden of disease. We collected data from relevant Belgian databases and performed five surveys of CP and HZ patients. The rates at which a general practitioner is visited at least once for CP and HZ are 346 and 378/100 000 person-years, respectively. The average CP and HZ hospitalization rates are 5·3 and 14·2/100 000 person-years respectively. The direct medical cost for HZ is about twice as large as the direct medical cost for CP. The quality-adjusted life years lost for ambulatory CP patients consulting a physician is more than double that of those not consulting a physician (0·010 vs. 0·004). In conclusion, both diseases cause a substantial burden in Belgium.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to estimate an empirical relationship and degree of agreement between the TTO values of patients’ own health and their 15D scores.

Methods: A total of 863 hospital patients aged 18–93 years filled in the 15D questionnaire to establish their 15D score and valued their present health with TTO. Wilcoxon signed rank test, the Spearman rank correlation coefficient and Tobit models were used to analyze the relation between the 15D and TTO scores.

Results: The null hypothesis of no tendency for one set of scores to be higher or lower than the other set could not be rejected. Apart from dummies for few patients groups, no additional information to the 15D score was found that would have explained significantly the variance in the TTO valuations of patients’ own health. The agreement between these to sets of scores turned out quite good at the aggregate level.

Conclusions: To the extent that mean TTO valuations of patients own health are valid for QALY calculations as they at least theoretically should be, and if experience of health states to be valued counts, the 15D scores are also valid without any transformation in a large group of heterogeneous patients. However, in certain patient groups, the agreement was not as good as overall.

Objectives: To compare the cost-effectiveness of the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) with infliximab in the United Kingdom over lifetime estimated from two different clinical trials and adjusted for clinical practice guidelines.

Methods: A cost-effectiveness model was developed to incorporate clinical, epidemiological, and economic data and allow extrapolation of trial results and incorporation of long-term treatment. Assumptions regarding treatment beyond the trials were based on open extensions from the trials and treatment guidelines by the British Society for Rheumatology. Results are presented for both the societal perspective and the perspective of the National Health Service (UK £, discounted 3.5 percent).

Results: Under the assumption that disease activity would be controlled and functional capacity would remain stable while on drug, treatment with infliximab (5 mg/kg every 6 weeks) dominates standard treatment in the societal perspective. In the National Health Service perspective, the cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained over lifetime was £28,300 and £26,800 for the two trials. If functional capacity were to deteriorate at half the rate of untreated patients, the cost per QALY gained would be £35,300 and £34,100, respectively. The results are sensitive to the dosing regimen adopted, the discontinuation rate, and assumptions concerning disease progression while on treatment.

Conclusions: The two clinical trials yield the same cost-effectiveness results and the cost per QALY gained with treatment was found to be in the acceptable range.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to develop a model to assess the cost-effectiveness of a new treatment for patients with depression.

Methods: A Markov simulation model was constructed to evaluate standard care for depression as performed in clinical practice compared with a new treatment for depression. Costs and effects were estimated for time horizons of 6 months to 5 years. A naturalistic longitudinal observational study provided data on costs, quality of life, and transition probabilities. Data on long-term consequences of depression and mortality risks were collected from the literature. Cost-effectiveness was quantified as quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained from the new treatment compared with standard care, and the societal perspective was taken. Probabilistic analyses were conducted to present the uncertainty in the results, and sensitivity analyses were conducted on key parameters used in the model.

Results: Compared with standard care, the new hypothetical therapy was predicted to substantially decrease costs and was also associated with gains in QALYs. With an improved treatment effect of 50 percent on achieving full remission, the net cost savings were 20,000 Swedish kronor over a 5-year follow-up time, given equal costs of treatments. Patients gained .073 QALYs over 5 years. The results are sensitive to changes in assigned treatment effects.

Conclusions: The present study provides a new model for assessing the cost-effectiveness of treatments for depression by incorporating full remission as the treatment goal and QALYs as the primary outcome measure. Moreover, we show the usefulness of naturalistic real-life data on costs and quality of life and transition probabilities when modeling the disease over time.