Estimating health effects in quality-of-life terms: health losses following road crashes

Abstract

Currently, measures of disability and health-related quality of life are becoming important, even essential, parameters in the evaluation of treatment and prevention strategies for reducing the burden of injury. The estimation of the ‘health effect’ induced by these policies should incorporate several important aspects: the proper definition of health effect, at individual and aggregate levels; the correct selection of a health metric; the accurate estimation of the short-term effect (direct health gain/loss) and long-term effect (total of health gain/loss throughout the life of the individual) that injuries may produce; and the suitable selection and management of databases. This review article focuses on the particular topic of road crashes, but the analysis can be extended to any sort of injury.

Keywords::

• health effect
• health measures
• health-related quality of life
• injuries
• road crash

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Carmen Herrero for her stimulating comments on a draft of this paper. Numerous discussions with Ildefonso Méndez helped shape the understanding of treatment effects; the author is grateful to him.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author has received financial support from Fundación BBVA. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.