Abstract

Objectives

This study examined health preference utility weights and utility decrements associated with different types of chronic conditions in the United States.

Methods

We used the 2010-2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey data for persons aged ≥ 18 years with 12-Item Short-Form Survey Physical and Mental Component Summary scores. 12-Item Short-Form Survey scores were converted to Short-Form Six-Dimension (SF-6D) preference scores to measure utilities of different chronic diseases. We used the Clinical Classification Code to identify 30 chronic diseases from 12 categories, such as cardiovascular diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, cancers, musculoskeletal diseases, endocrine or metabolic diseases, oral diseases, respiratory diseases, and mental disorders. A generalized linear model was used to quantify the utility decrements for 30 chronic diseases, controlling for demographic characteristics.

Results

We identified 132 737 adults (mean age 47.2 years, 52.2% female, 80% white); 73% had at least one identified chronic disease, and the mean SF-6D was 0.786. Among 30 chronic diseases, the unadjusted mean SF-6D scores of patients with cognitive disorder (0.607) were the lowest, followed by congestive heart failure (0.629), rheumatoid arthritis (0.654), and lung cancer (0.662). After controlling for demographic variables (ie, age, sex) and comorbidities, cognitive disorders (−0.116), mood disorders (−0.099), rheumatoid arthritis (−0.090), liver cancer (−0.078), and stroke (−0.063) showed the highest decrements in the SF-6D scores (P .05).

Conclusions

This study provides a nationally representative catalog of utility weights for major chronic diseases in the US general population. The utility decrements will enable researchers to calculate the health utilities of patients with multiple comorbid diseases.