Exercise: Valuing Individual Health Outcomes

This sample exercise and solution set 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 sample exercise, materials include an instructor's note, videos, companion slides, a glossary, and an annotated bibliography.

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.

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 utility probabilities disease/condition can be altered to change the level of difficulty of the exercise and to make it relevant for different learners.  These should 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.