In this paper, we outline the three main concepts of 'ageism'; health maximisation ageism, productivity ageism, and fair innings ageism. We provide a methodological overview of the existing empirical literature on people's preferences regarding age and classify these studies according to the...

A review of relevant literature within health economics, psychology and moral philosophy suggests that people want resource allocation decisions in health to be informed by considerations of equity as well as efficiency. A number of empirical studies demonstrate that people are willing to...

In cost-utility analysis, the numbers of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained are aggregated according to the sum-ranking (or QALY maximisation) rule. This requires that the social value from health improvements is a simple product of gains in quality of life, length of life and the number...