Measuring and Valuing Outcomes

We conduct applied and methodological research to identify and understand the outcomes that matter to patients, carers, and/or society, the value they assign to those outcomes, and how best to incorporate these outcomes and values in decision-making.

OHE has a longstanding reputation for leading innovative and theoretically sound research on the measurement and valuation of health outcomes. Our research is global in scope, is published in top peer-reviewed academic journals, and disseminated widely at international conferences.

Our expertise includes:

  • Quantitative patient preference studies using discrete choice experiments (DCEs) and best-worst scaling (BWS)
  • Qualitative research to explore patient experiences and carer burden via interviews, focus groups, and online bulletin boards
  • Societal preference studies exploring public priorities for treatment funding decisions and broader health policies using person trade-off (PTO) and constant-sum paired comparisons (CSPC)
  • Patient and carer utility (vignette) studies to inform health economic models using time trade-off (TTO)
  • Generating rigorous real-world evidence (RWE) to complement trial data
  • Development and validation of EQ-5D bolt-on items
  • Patient-reported outcome (PRO) strategy and psychometric analyses
  • Mapping between condition-specific and generic measures
  • Production of country-specific PRO value sets, including for younger populations
  • Methodological research on valuation methods, including novel methods such as the online personal utility functions (OPUF) tool

Key objectives for this research theme:

  • To facilitate the measurement and valuation of outcomes for health technology assessment (HTA)
  • To understand the preferences of patients, their carers, and clinicians to inform health care decision making
  • To understand the preferences of society to inform health policy decisions

Our latest content on this theme

wooden scale balancing one big ball and four small ones

Why do we expect obesity medicines to work differently?

Weight regain after stopping GLP-1 medicines isn’t a treatment failure — it shows that obesity is a chronic, relapsing condition. Like other long-term therapies, benefits last only while treatment continues. Reframing obesity this way can improve outcomes and reduce stigma.

binoculars on top of rock mountain at beautiful sunset background

The case for adopting a broader perspective on value in Health Technology Assessment

In this Whitepaper, we describe different perspectives that can be adopted in Health Technology Assessment (HTA), and some of the advantages and disadvantages of these different…

Happy Senior African American Couple Man Woman on Beach

Patient preferences for treatment in relapsed/refractory acute leukemia

When acute leukemia relapses, treatment decisions can be complex. Patients may face trade-offs between survival benefits, side effects and how treatment is delivered. This study asked people with acute leukemia across five countries what matters most to them when making these choices.

An elderly couple sit on a bench with their back in a bark during autumn

Understanding the preferences of people with acute leukemia for different health outcomes

When we want to understand or measure someone’s “health-related quality-of-life”, we typically ask them to describe the problems they have with different aspects of their health. In this study, we wanted to understand which aspects, or “dimensions”, of health-related quality-of-life are most important to the general public and to persons with acute leukemia.