DALYS and QALYs – Does the Choice of Measure Matter?
2018
This article discusses the measurement of health benefits as a key issue in health economic evaluations. Authors adapted two previously published models, a Markov model for human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination, and a pneumococcal vaccination deterministic model (PNEUMO) that reported outputs in QALYs to estimate DALYs in 3 settings, Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom.
While the authors found that QALY gains were larger than DALYs avoided in all countries for HPV, differences using QALYs or DALYs were less consistent and sometimes in the opposite direction for PNEUMO. Despite this, they did not find evidence to suggest a change to the current practice of researchers and decision-makers to use QALYs or DALYs interchangeably. While these differences could influence final decisions, these influences were found to be similar to other frequently used assumptions.
DALYS and QALYs – Does the Choice of Measure Matter?
Source:
Augustovski F, Colantoni LD, Galante, J et al. Measuring the Benefits of Healthcare: DALYS and QALYs – Does the Choice of Measure Matter? A Case Study of Two Preventive Interventions. International Journal of Health Policy and Management 2018; 7 (2): 120-136. http://dx.doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2017.47