calc_QALY: Calculate Quality-Adjusted Life Years

In Health-Economics-in-R/QALY: Calculate Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) Gains with Discounting and Inflated Costs

Description

Discounted total QALYs up to a defined time horizon. This is a simpler, alternative function. See S3 Method also available (total_QALYs).

Usage

calc_QALY(utility = NA, intervals = NA, age = NA, start_delay = 0,
  discount_rate = 0.035, utility_method = "add")

Arguments

utility	Vector of values between 0 and 1 (1 - utility loss)
intervals	Time intervals for each utility, usually whole year i.e. 1. This is useful for fractions of years at the start and end of the period. However, since we may not know this then may not be necessary.
age	Year of age
start_delay	What time delay to origin, to shift discounting
discount_rate	Default: 3.5% per year
utility_method	How to combine utilities. Default: add, or prod

Details

Uses the following formula, for year i:

∑ interval(i) * utility(i) * QoL(age(i)) * discount(i)

for i = 1, ..., time_horizon.

References

Sassi, Franco, Health Policy and Planning, 5, 402-408, Calculating QALYs, comparing QALY and DALY calculations, volume 21, 2006

See Also

calc_QALY_population, total_QALYs

Examples

calc_QALY(utility = 0.9,
          age = 13,
          intervals = 49)

Health-Economics-in-R/QALY documentation built on Oct. 26, 2020, 2:28 a.m.