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The Development of Capability Measures in Health Economics: Opportunities, Challenges and Progress

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Abstract

Recent years have seen increased engagement amongst health economists with the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen and others. This paper focuses on the capability approach in relation to the evaluative space used for analysis within health economics. It considers the opportunities that the capability approach offers in extending this space, but also the methodological challenges associated with moving from the theoretical concepts to practical empirical applications. The paper then examines three ‘families’ of measures, Oxford Capability instruments (OxCap), Adult Social Care Outcome Toolkit (ASCOT) and ICEpop CAPability (ICECAP), in terms of the methodological choices made in each case. The paper concludes by discussing some of the broader issues involved in making use of the capability approach in health economics. It also suggests that continued exploration of the impact of different methodological choices will be important in moving forward.

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Acknowledgements

An EU-funded ERC Starting Grant (261098 EconEndLife) funds Joanna Coast and Philip Kinghorn to conduct research into the allocation of resources in end-of-life care using a capability framework. At the time this work was conduced, Paul Mitchell was funded through NIHR core funding to the Health Economics Unit, University of Birmingham.

Contributions

Each author initially drafted one section: JC Opportunities; PK Challenges; and PM Progress. Sections were drawn together into a complete first draft and edited by JC. All authors then commented on that first complete draft and on subsequent versions, and agreed on the final version of the paper. JC acts as guarantor for the paper.

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  1. Health Economics Unit, School of Health and Population Sciences, University of Birmingham, Public Health Building, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

    Joanna Coast, Philip Kinghorn & Paul Mitchell

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  1. Joanna Coast
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  2. Philip Kinghorn
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Correspondence to Joanna Coast.

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Coast, J., Kinghorn, P. & Mitchell, P. The Development of Capability Measures in Health Economics: Opportunities, Challenges and Progress. Patient 8, 119–126 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40271-014-0080-1

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