Review © Future Drugs Ltd. All rights reserved. ISSN 1473-7167 89 CONTENTS Overview of theory & concepts Using DCEs to assess consumers preferences for health Expert opinion Five-year view Key issues References Affiliations www.future-drugs.com Discrete choice experiments to measure consumer preferences for health and healthcare Rosalie Viney † , Emily Lancsar and Jordan Louviere To investigate the impact of health policies on individual well-being, estimate the value to society of new intervention or policies or predict demand for healthcare, we need information about individuals’ preferences. Economists usually use market-based data to analyze preferences, but such data are limited in the healthcare context. Discrete choice experiments are a potentially valuable tool for elicitation and analysis of preferences and thus, for economic analysis of health and health programs. This paper reviews the use of discrete choice experiments to measure consumers’ preferences for health and healthcare. The paper provides an overview of the approach and discusses issues that arise when using discrete choice experiments to assess individuals’ preferences for health and healthcare. Expert Rev. Pharmacoeconomics Outcomes Res. 2(4), (2002) † Author for correspondence CHERE, 88 Mallett St, Camperdown NSW 2050, Australia Tel.: +61 2 9351 0900 Fax: +61 2 9351 0930 rosalie.viney@chere.uts.edu.au KEYWORDS: consumer preferences, cost benefit analysis, discrete choice experiments, discrete choice modeling, economic evaluation, stated preferences, willingness to pay In planning health services for a population or formulating health policy, information is needed about what factors affect consumer demand for healthcare. Effectiveness of inter- ventions depends on compliance with thera- pies. It is important to understand what factors are likely to increase compliance. For programs, such as screening and immunization, effective- ness depends on achieving high uptake in the target population. Evaluation of health inter- ventions, such as new drug therapies or changes to the way services are delivered, involves not only understanding the impact of the interven- tion on health, but also on individual well- being and value to society. Whether we want to investigate the impact of a health policy on individual wel-lbeing, estimate the value to society of a new intervention, or explain or pre- dict demand for healthcare, we need informa- tion about individuals’ preferences for health programs and health outcomes. Economists usually use market-based data to obtain information about preferences. Limited market data are available for such analysis in the healthcare sector. Due to public and private insurance, in most countries consumers rarely face market prices for healthcare goods and services. Given the asymmetry of information between provider and consumer, it is not always clear that observed healthcare consump- tion is based on consumers’ preferences alone. Where consumers do make market-based choices, the relationship between healthcare and health is complex and the attributes that consumers value may not be readily discernable from observed healthcare consumption. Many of the healthcare choices that are of most inter- est to policy-makers are about new interven- tions, for which there may be no market data. As a result, stated preference methods, includ- ing standard gamble, time trade-off and con- tingent valuation, have been commonly used in health economics. Use of discrete choice experiments (DCEs) is a stated preference method in which there is growing interest in health economics. DCEs allow for analysis of preferences for complex multiattribute goods, such as healthcare, when limited market data are available. DCEs were developed in the areas of transport economics [1,2] and marketing [3] and have been applied to other areas, such as environmental economics [4] and telecommunications [5]. Applications in health have been relatively recent, with papers dating from 1994 [6]. In the past 5 years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of this