Terminology: I think we should not try to push the term WALY; it sounds silly enough as an acronym that it is hard to build momentum around. I’ve heard health economists discuss this issue and complain about ‘WALY’ as a term, and I don’t think there’s an ideal solution. It would have been nice if QALYs had been called HALYs (“health-adjusted life year”), leaving QALY as the more general term. “Wellbeing QALY” is one alternative, but it’s quite clunky.
Generally: agree with the point.
Terminology: I think we should not try to push the term WALY; it sounds silly enough as an acronym that it is hard to build momentum around. I’ve heard health economists discuss this issue and complain about ‘WALY’ as a term, and I don’t think there’s an ideal solution. It would have been nice if QALYs had been called HALYs (“health-adjusted life year”), leaving QALY as the more general term. “Wellbeing QALY” is one alternative, but it’s quite clunky.
Agree—added a clarification at the bottom of the main post.