The utility of different health states as perceived by the general public

A series of ‘scenarios’ describing the physical, social and emotional characteristics, limitations and duration of different health states have been successfully applied to a random sample of the general public in order to determine their social utility. The resulting mean daily health state utilities differ among disorders and vary with age, the duration of the disorder, the ‘label’ used to describe the disorder and the health status of the respondent. These health state utilities have considerable potential application in the planning and financing of health services.