Although risk-factor modification has gained wide acceptance as an effective approach to the prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD), health planners, physicians and patients confront considerable uncertainty over the most appropriate and efficient preventive strategies. Some preventive...

What is a QALY worth in monetary units? This paper presents the main arguments in the literature regarding the obstacles involved in establishing one unique willingness to pay (WTP) estimate for the value of a QALY. To directly translate QALYs into monetary units, and in this manner translate...

A number of recent findings from the literature imply that the value of a QALY varies depending on the concentration or dispersion of that QALY over treated individuals. Given that funding decisions are currently made under either the assumption of distributive-neutrality or some combination of...

This article provides an outline for a cost-effectiveness analysis of a drug that slows the consequences of Alzheimer's disease. Such an analysis cannot easily be performed for 2 main reasons. The first is that often relatives and friends, rather than professionals, take care of the patient....

Generic measures of benefit which employ individuals' preferences, such as the quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), are, in principle, the most appropriate outcome measure to use in the economic evaluation of cancer therapies. They can reflect the trade-offs between health-related quality of life...