The Measurement and Valuation of Quality of Life in Economic Evaluation An Introduction and Overview of Issues and Options

This Working Paper is intended to provide a relatively quick overview of the issues associated with the measurement of Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) for economic evaluation. By contrast with other such overviews it emphasises a number of the more contentious issues where economists have not reached agreement. These include the broad measurement strategy, technical issues associated with measurement, the role of ethical values and psychometrics. On many of these issues we state our consensus view which, in some cases, differs from economic orthodoxy. These views are justified in a critical review of the literature which is reproduced as a companion paper. The paper includes a glossary of terms and examples of the "multi-attribute utility" (MAU) instruments which are used in one of the approaches to the measurement of HRQoL.