Research and analysis

Valuation of risks to life and health: monetary Value of a Life Year (VOLY)

Study assessing the need for primary research to update the Value of a Life Year (VOLY) and Willingness-To-Pay for Quality Adjusted Life-Year (WTP-QALY).

Documents

Annexe 1

Annexe 2

Annexe 3

Annexe 4

Annexe 5

Details

This report reviews the case for updating key measures applied in the UK government for valuing changes in mortality risk and health due to government policy (the monetary value of a life year (VOLY) and quality-adjusted life year (QALY)). These values are set out in Her Majesty’s (HM) Treasury guidance (The Green Book: appraisal and evaluation in central government) and are used in economic appraisals to support policymaking and business cases.

The report provides recommendations on:

  • the need for, and feasibility of, undertaking new large-scale primary research to update these values
  • developing a conceptual framework proposing the theoretical relationships between the value
  • outlining an empirical approach for undertaking any new research, including the main methodological issues a new study would need to address

In developing the recommendations, the researchers undertook five in-depth literature reviews addressing the five questions posed in the research specification:

  1. What are the relevant published estimates of the Value of a Life Year, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?
  2. What are the main methodological issues in deriving a Value of a Life Year and what approaches exist in literature for addressing these?
  3. Can a Value of a Life Year be derived which is compatible with a Quality-Adjusted Life Year framework?
  4. Is it possible to derive a context-free Value of a Life Year for application across different policy contexts?
  5. What is the relationship between the Value of a Life Year and the Value of a Prevented Fatality?

These literature reviews are provided as annexes to the main report.

The research was commissioned by a group of seven government departments and agencies, led by the Health and Safety Executive (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Department of Health and Social Care; Department for Transport; Food Standards Agency; Food Standards Scotland; Home Office).

Updates to this page

Published 28 July 2020

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