Process / pipelinehealth utility measurement

Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY)

A QALY measures health benefit as utility weight (0 = death, 1 = perfect health) multiplied by time lived. Developed by Alan Williams in 1985, QALYs enable comparison of disparate health interventions on a common metric. Used globally by health technology assessment bodies—NICE (UK), HAS (France), CADTH (Canada), WHO—to decide which treatments deserve public funding.

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Sources

  1. Kind, P. (1989). The EuroQol instrument: an index of health-related quality of life. In B. Teeling Smith (Ed.), Measuring health: a practical approach. Chichester: Wiley. link
  2. Weinstein, M. C., & Stason, W. B. (1976). Hypertension: A Policy Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. link
  3. Brooks, R. (1996). EuroQol: the current state of play. Health Policy, 37(1), 53-72. DOI: 10.1016/0168-8510(96)00822-6

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Referenced by

ScholarGateQuality-Adjusted Life Year (Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY)). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/health-economics/quality-adjusted-life-year