There’s no single right answer here, and several good approaches depending on the application to which you want to put the information. A reasonable estimate is that a baby born today and then given the best life modern society can give it will accrue around 24 QALYs (at a 3.5% discount rate). This is equivalent to 70 undiscounted QALYs, but you absolutely must discount to some extent in this case, because a QALY now is clearly preferred to a QALY in 80 years time.
This value is found by multiplying the life expectancy of a baby born in the UK in 2020 by the typical quality of life that baby will experience each year of their life. Life expectancy is pretty straightforward to calculate (I take it from the Office for National Statistics), quality of life is much more complicated—the standard in the field is Ara, R. and Brazier, J.E. (2010), but this is getting a bit out of date now. https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/11177/1/HEDS_DP_10-11.pdf
Obvious problems with the translatability of this approach is that the Ara & Brazier paper only applies to the UK. Different countries will have different profiles of population health (which is obvious) and also different ways of interpreting how health applies to QALYs (which is less obvious). For example, if old age affects your ability to walk easily / comfortably then this might matter more to your QALYs in dense walkable European cities than car-focussed American suburbs (I have no idea if this mechanism is true, just giving it as an example). This will be particularly challenging if you’re trying to calculate the number of QALYs a person accrues in a global health context, because there is limited research in the area.
Thanks! The link to Ara & Brazier (2010) is particularly helpful, as Figure 1 contains the information I need to calculate it for at least a UK citizen.
UK life expectancy is ~80. Eyeballing the figure suggests those <30 accrue ~0.95 QALYs/year, while those from 30-80 accrue ~0.85. Putting that together would suggest ~71 undiscounted QALYs, which agrees with your estimated of 70.
I’m aware that this is an extremely crude and rough way of doing things, but it’s still helpful as a sanity check for the problem I’m currently working on. Thanks again!
There’s no single right answer here, and several good approaches depending on the application to which you want to put the information. A reasonable estimate is that a baby born today and then given the best life modern society can give it will accrue around 24 QALYs (at a 3.5% discount rate). This is equivalent to 70 undiscounted QALYs, but you absolutely must discount to some extent in this case, because a QALY now is clearly preferred to a QALY in 80 years time.
This value is found by multiplying the life expectancy of a baby born in the UK in 2020 by the typical quality of life that baby will experience each year of their life. Life expectancy is pretty straightforward to calculate (I take it from the Office for National Statistics), quality of life is much more complicated—the standard in the field is Ara, R. and Brazier, J.E. (2010), but this is getting a bit out of date now. https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/11177/1/HEDS_DP_10-11.pdf
Obvious problems with the translatability of this approach is that the Ara & Brazier paper only applies to the UK. Different countries will have different profiles of population health (which is obvious) and also different ways of interpreting how health applies to QALYs (which is less obvious). For example, if old age affects your ability to walk easily / comfortably then this might matter more to your QALYs in dense walkable European cities than car-focussed American suburbs (I have no idea if this mechanism is true, just giving it as an example). This will be particularly challenging if you’re trying to calculate the number of QALYs a person accrues in a global health context, because there is limited research in the area.
Thanks! The link to Ara & Brazier (2010) is particularly helpful, as Figure 1 contains the information I need to calculate it for at least a UK citizen.
UK life expectancy is ~80. Eyeballing the figure suggests those <30 accrue ~0.95 QALYs/year, while those from 30-80 accrue ~0.85. Putting that together would suggest ~71 undiscounted QALYs, which agrees with your estimated of 70.
I’m aware that this is an extremely crude and rough way of doing things, but it’s still helpful as a sanity check for the problem I’m currently working on. Thanks again!