The effect of experience of illness on health state valuations

Abstract

There is increasing interest in health status measurement and the relative weights that patients and the general public attach to different states of health and illness. One important question that has been raised is whether preferences differ according to the characteristics of the respondents, such as their experience of illness. The results presented in this article suggest that current health status has an important effect on the valuations attached to different health states, with those in poorer health generally giving higher valuations. Past experience of illness, on the other hand, appears to have a negligible effect on valuations. These findings pose real problems for policy makers. To the problem of whose values should count can be added the problem of when these values should count, since the results imply that different valuations may be given by the same respondent depending on how recent their experience of illness was.