Last week, Cathrine Tipsmark and Laura Tølløse attended the Annual Meeting of the Danish Society for Health Economics (DSSØ).
The programme covered a broad range of topics, from local healthcare systems to economic assessments of mental disorders in children and adolescents.
One discussion particularly stood out: Outcome measures in economic assessments.
QALYs serve as the standard economic benchmark in healthcare evaluation, focusing on quantifying health-related quality of life.
Alternative measures are less mature, but they raise an important methodological question: Which outcomes should economic evaluation capture?
Among the measures discussed were:
🔹 PALYs: Productivity-adjusted life years extend the concept of QALYs by explicitly capturing the economic burden of workforce productivity losses, such as productivity losses related to chronic illnesses.
🔹 WELLBYs: Well-being-adjusted life years, a new measure of societal value and progress, assess how much an intervention improves an individual’s overall well-being.
As these measures continues to mature, the discussion around which aspects health economic assessments should capture remains relevant.
Which outcome measures do you think deserve more attention in future health economic evaluations?
