Instructor's Note: Valuing Individual Health Outcomes

This instructor's note supports the teaching pack on Valuing Individual Health Outcomes, in which students learn how to assign quantitative values to health outcomes at the individual level, including: expected utility theory, the axioms of this theory, distinguishing between preference-based measures of value and health-related quality of life outcomes, measuring utility using the standard gamble, the time trade-off, and the visual analog scale, and understanding the limitations of these measures. In addition to the instructor's note, materials include videos, companion slides, a glossary, an annotated bibliography, and sample exercises.

Learning Objectives

1. Define utility.
2. Distinguish between preferences and measures of health status.
3. Define expected utility theory and describe its axioms.
4. Describe how to perform a standard gamble and how to calculate standard gamble utilities.
5. Demonstrate an understanding of the limitations of the standard gamble and the advantages and disadvantages of alternative utility measures.

Teaching Pack Materials

• Instructor's Note: Valuing Individual Health Outcomes
• Videos, Part 1: Measuring Preferences for a Decision Tree (3 videos)
• Videos, Part 2: Putting Utilities into Decision Trees and Understanding Them (3 videos)
• Companion Slides to Videos, Parts 1 & 2: Measuring Preferences for a Decision Tree and Putting Utilities into Decision Trees and Understanding Them
• Glossary: Valuing Individual Health Outcomes
• Bibliography: Valuing Individual Health Outcomes
• Sample Exercises: Valuing Individual Health Outcomes

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.