Exercise: Population Health Outcomes

This sample exercise and solution set supports the teaching pack on Population Health Outcomes, in which students learn how to describe outcomes at a population level using quality adjusted life years (QALYs), including how to calculate QALYs, the assumptions underlying them, how to derive QALYs using indirect utility measures, and what are some of the ethical criticisms of QALYs. In addition to the sample exercise, materials include an instructor's note, videos, companion slides, a glossary, and an annotated bibliography.

Learning Objectives

1. Define Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and be able to calculate them.
2. Explain three assumptions necessary to use QALYs as an outcome.
3. Define indirect utility measures and understand how they are used to derive community utilities.
4. Demonstrate an understanding of three ethical criticisms of QALYs.

This sample question and solution can be useful for practicing some of the basic concepts covered in this teaching pack. The narrative sections of solutions can be phrased differently depending on the learner audience—this is an example phrasing. Also, the details of disease/condition can be altered to change the level of difficulty of the exercise and to make it relevant for different learners.  These can all be modified, tailored, and expanded upon to meet the goals of specific classes.

This teaching pack was developed by Sue J. Goldie and Eve Wittenberg at the Center for Health Decision Science, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The multimedia components were developed as part of a series of pilots in the CHDS Media Hub, led by Jake Waxman, where media-based pedagogy experiments contribute to new ways of thinking about short form content.