Quality of life: Encyclopedia II - Quality of life - Measuring quality of life

Quality of life - Measuring quality of life

The measures often used in the study of health care are 'quality-adjusted life years' (QALYs) and the related 'disability-adjusted life years' (DALYs); both equal 1 for each year of full-health life, and less than 1 for various degrees of illness or disability. Thus the cost-effectiveness of a treatment can be assessed by the cost per QALY or DALY it produces; for example, a cancer treatment which costs $10,000 and on average gives the patient 2 extra years of full health costs $5000 per QALY. Assessing treatments in this way avoids the much greater problems associated with putting a monetary value on life, as required in other areas of economics; saying that a treatment costs $5000 per QALY (i.e. per year of life) does not say or assume anything about the monetary value of a year of life.

Another method of measuring quality of life is by subtracting the "standard of living", according to the technical definition of the term. For example, people in rural areas and small towns are generally reluctant to move to cities, even if it would mean a substantial increase in their standard of living. One can thus see that the quality of life of living in a rural area is of enough value to offset a higher standard of living. Similarly people must be paid more to accept jobs that will lower their quality of life, night jobs, ones with extensive travel all pay more and the difference in salaries can also give a measure of the value of quality of life.

A number of groups and agencies around the world have tried to develop ways of assessing quality of life:

• The Economist: Quality-of-life index
• Vanderford-Riley well being schedule
• Physical quality-of-life index
• UN Human Development Index
• Genuine Progress Indicator
• Gross National Happiness

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Measuring quality of life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki