Cost-Utility Analysis

Cost-utility analysis (CUA) is a form of economic evaluation that compares the costs of alternative interventions with their outcomes expressed in a common, preference-based measure of health — most often the quality-adjusted life year (QALY), or in global health the disability-adjusted life year (DALY). By combining length and quality of life into a single index, CUA allows interventions with very different effects to be compared on a like-for-like basis, and it produces an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio expressed as cost per QALY gained. It is the dominant method for informing decisions about which health technologies and programs to fund.