OBJECTIVES: RSV is a highly contagious human pathogen that causes acute respiratory infections. The objective of this study was to estimate RSV-specific health utilities for US adults ≥60 years of age.

METHODS: A cross-sectional, observational study collected data on valuation of RSV health states by US adults. The survey consisted of a series of vignettes that described RSV health states for a hypothetical 70-year-old: 1) severe lower respiratory tract disease (sLRTD), 2) lower respiratory tract disease (LRTD) and 3) upper respiratory tract disease (URTD). The vignettes were developed with clinical expert and patient inputs to capture characteristic signs and symptoms of each health state. After reading the health vignettes, responders valued them based on a time trade-off (TTO) approach, i.e., participants were asked to trade some portion of time from the end of their lives to avoid the health state described in the vignette. Quality-adjusted life year (QALY) loss was then obtained for the three health states by dividing the TTO values by 365 days.

RESULTS: A total of 1,473 potential participants completed the screener. The final sample consisted of 400 study participants. Seventy-five participants were excluded from the analysis because of inconsistencies in the response or providing the same non-zero values for all vignettes. Because the distributions of the TTO values were highly skewed, median values were reported. Using a 3% discount rate, the median number of days participants were willing to trade to avoid an RSV disease were 9.09 (sLRTD), 6.49 (LRTD) and 4.87 (URTD); equivalent to QALY losses of 0.025, 0.018 and 0.013, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: This study provides new data on the valuation of RSV-related health states indicating that US adults are willing to trade several days at the end of their life to avoid an RSV episode at an older adult age.