Abstract

This themed section of Value in Health reports the international development of a new health-related quality of life instrument, the EQ-HWB (EQ Health and Wellbeing) instrument. The “Extending the QALY” project, which has inspired this extensive body of work, began as a UK initiative driven by the need for an outcome measure for use in social and community care.1 Relative to existing generic preference-based measures (GPBMs), this new instrument is designed to capture a broader notion of health and wellbeing. This ability to operate across dimensions, which was flagged in Brazier et al,2 is a key advance of the EQ-HWB. It is noticeable that items not widely seen in other GPBMs, such as exhaustion, loneliness, concentration, and control, capture important aspects of wellbeing in significant patient and community populations and would risk being undervalued using existing instruments.