Comparing apples and oranges: strategies to weigh health against other social values

In this chapter we review technical methods for defining benefits packages, focussing on those which incorporate social values additional to health. We take the view that methods for defining benefits packages should be reflective of social values, but also: technically robust and justifiable; easy to understand; and have low cost of implementation. We start off by revisiting the main concepts of Cost Effectiveness Analysis (including Cost Utility Analysis and Generalised Cost Effectiveness Analysis), and then outline several methods which have been advocated for the purpose of incorporating additional social values – focussing on Multicriteria Decision Analysis but also discussing Extended Cost Effectiveness Analysis and Cost Benefit Analysis. We conclude by assessing our methods against the above-mentioned criteria.