Age, Utilities, and Self-Reported Health: Issues for HTA

On Wednesday 18th May OHE’s Patricia Cubi-Molla presented an OHE Lunchtime Seminar on age, utilities and self-reported health. This post contains a short summary and the slides.

On Wednesday 18th May 2016 OHE’s Patricia Cubi-Molla presented an OHE Lunchtime Seminar on age, utilities and self-reported health.

The aim of the research presented by Patricia was to explore the possible reasons why a central estimate of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for a group of elderly patients can exceed that of the general population of the same age.

Specifically, the seminar addressed the following questions:

• Can we find significant differences in the variation of self-reported HRQoL values around a central estimate, when comparing different age groups?
• How do these differences (if any) depend on the central measure used (mean or median)?
• How does age affect respondents’ HRQoL valuations of hypothetical EQ-5D health states?
• What is the rationale for age-adjusting the utilities to be used in Health Technology Assessment (HTA)?
• Is there a case for using utilities specific to age (or other relevant) sub-groups?

To explore these questions, Patricia and colleagues used the Measurement and Valuation of Health (MVH) study database. This was a large study of self-reported health in the UK population, undertaken in 1993.

The slides below contain the results and discussion presented in the seminar.

For further information please contact Patricia Cubi-Molla through our Meet the Team webpage.