Background: Obesity is a major contributor to the overall burden of disease (also reducing life expectancy) and associated with high medical costs due to obesity-related diseases. However, obesity prevention, while reducing obesity-related morbidity and mortality, may not result in overall...

Which costs and benefits to consider in economic evaluations of healthcare interventions remains an area of much controversy. Unrelated medical costs in life-years gained is an important cost category that is normally ignored in economic evaluations, irrespective of the perspective chosen for...

This paper comments on the recently published guidelines of the Washington Panel on incorporation of indirect non-medical costs, or productivity costs, in economic evaluations of health care. Traditionally the human capital or more recently the friction cost method is used to measure these...

Health normally deteriorates beyond a certain age. This means, in Amartya Sen's terms, that one's health capabilities decline beyond a certain age, making it more difficult to achieve functionings such as mobility or sexual activity. In this paper, we investigate whether this normal reduction in...

The objective of the present study was to evaluate whether people include the effects of ill-health on income and leisure in quality of life valuation when the measure is silent on both. A convenience sample of 20 health professionals had to rate a health status on a visual analogue scale (VAS)...

An important subject of debate in cost-utility analysis of health care programmes is whether to include costs of unrelated medical care in life years gained. The inclusion of such costs is likely to be of consequence in the case of primary prevention. This paper presents different strategies...