In a study of New York physicians' compliance with reporting of communicable diseases, surveyed physicians responded better to legal warnings than to requests that explained public health benefits.
A mother of a prematurely born son reviews several quality-of-life research studies that highlight the disparity between self-reported quality of life and physician estimates of quality of life.
A review of three journal articles shows the significant impact that poverty has on physical and mental health status, as well as all causes of mortality.
A bioethicist argues that two journal articles about quality of life-adjusted years research oversimplifies the issue and do not take into consideration people's abilities to adapt to disability and disease.
A health economics professor believes more research is needed on quality of life-adjusted years to explore the way we describe health states, the elicitation of patient values, and how to develop methods for obtaining informed general population preferences.
Elly A. Stolk, MSc and Floortje E. van Nooten, MSc
Two medical technology researchers argue that patients' own valuations of their health states may result in devaluation of interventions that can help them.