Objective
To provide emerging good practice guidance for addressing preference heterogeneity in choice data, specifically from discrete choice experiments (DCEs) or best-worst scaling (BWS) studies.
Rationale
Health preference research (HPR) typically quantifies trade-offs that patients, caregivers, or physicians are willing to make between clinical and non-clinical benefits, risks, administration and other healthcare aspects. While many HPR studies are concerned with average preferences, ‘one size fits all’ decisions and policies ignoring heterogeneity in preferences and treatment priorities can result in unintended consequences. Given the lack of consensus-based recommendations and an increasing number of complex models addressing heterogeneity, addressing this gap in guidance is important to improve overall healthcare decision making.