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The medical device industry, physicians, and global regulatory authorities collaborate in the introduction of medical devices that are safe and effective for their intended uses. Knowledge regarding regulatory processes is required to successfully navigate the available pathways to market for innovative pediatric orthopedic medical devices and provide timely access to potentially life-enhancing and lifesaving orthopedic devices. Medical device technologies directed toward care of pediatric patients with disorders affecting the spine and thorax represent a critical unmet need in the United States. Specific challenges encountered in the development of pediatric spinal devices relate to economic factors, target population considerations, liability concerns, available regulatory pathways, and clinical trial design considerations. Processes for regulation of medical devices worldwide are variable and ultimately remain subject to control by the regulatory body of the specific country. International medical device regulatory harmonization and convergence offer potential to improve regulatory processes for pediatric spinal devices.

Epidemiological models have played a central role in the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly when urgent decisions were required and available evidence was sparse. They have been used to predict the evolution of the disease and to inform policy-making. In this paper, we address two kinds of epidemiological models widely used in the pandemic, namely, compartmental models and agent-based models. After describing their essentials—some real examples are invoked—we discuss their main strengths and weaknesses. Then, on the basis of this analysis, we make a comparison between their respective merits concerning three different goals: prediction, explanation, and intervention. We argue that there are general considerations which could favour any of those sorts of models for obtaining the aforementioned goals. We conclude, however, that preference for particular models must be grounded case-by-case since additional contextual factors, as the peculiarities of the target population and the aims and expectations of policy-makers, cannot be overlooked.

Existence of an alternative explanation for the benefit of a treatment is a confounder. It is a nuisance “passenger” variable that rides along with treatment and undermines the ability to make causal inferences. This chapter focuses on why random assignment is so powerful and should be protected. It presents a history of attempts to answer the question of whether or not a treatment works, and the arrival at random assignment as the best way to make causal inferences about the benefits of a treatment. It defines confounding as an error of interpretation and the essential role of avoiding it by protecting the random assignment. It then goes on to illustrate ways to protect random assignment in the design, conduct, and analyses of a trial, with particular attention to the central role of identifying a patient-centered target population, recruiting it, retaining it, and insuring that all randomized participants are included in the evaluation of trial results.

The study examines users’ perception of the telecommunication technologies used for improving service delivery at federal university libraries in Anambra and Enugu States of Nigeria. Its specific objectives are to determine users’ awareness and satisfaction on the use of telecommunication technologies in service delivery and also to highlight the roles and challenges associated with the use of the facilities in service delivery in the libraries under study. The paper adopts a descriptive survey design. Its target population was 11609 registered library users. A proportionate random sampling technique was used to select 5% (580 respondents) of the population as sample for the study. A self-developed questionnaire was used for data collection. The data collected were analyzed using mean and standard deviation. The result of the study reveals that users were aware of the use of some telecommunication technologies, but were not satisfied with the functional state of most of the technologies used for service delivery. However, the study identifies various challenging factors that undermined effective use of telecommunication technologies to improve service delivery in the study area. Among the identified challenges were poor funding, lack of competent personnel, irregular power supply and lack of internet connectivity. Suggestions are made to improve the functional state of the facilities to ensure prompt and efficient service delivery.

TDCS is a promising method for altering cortical excitability with clinical implications. It has been increasingly used in children and adolescents especially in recent years. Yet, its potential target populations, developmental aspects, and efficacy parameters still require further investigation. In this chapter, we discuss the physiological mechanisms underlying acute and neuroplastic after-effects of tDCS in the developing brain. In the major part of this chapter, we provide an up-to-date overview of tDCS applications in child- and adolescent-related disorders, including neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders according to the DSM-5 classification of disorders. Moreover, we discuss developmental aspects of stimulation parameters that contribute to tDCS-induced acute and neuroplastic after-effects, which need to be adapted in the developing brain. Finally, we introduce other potentially interesting noninvasive electrical brain stimulation techniques suited for application in children and adolescents.

The primary objective of knee arthroplasty is to alleviate chronic pain and reinstate functionality of the impaired knee. The leading etiologies for TKA failures have been identified as microbial infections, instability, malfunctioning of the prosthetic, aseptic loosening, implant fracture, gangrene in the patella, and improper axial positioning. Excessive implant overhang over the bony resection boundary, especially in the mediolateral direction, has been shown to associate with soft tissue impingement and inflammation and cause significantly worse knee outcomes and pain. Intraoperatively, a surgeon can avoid excessive overhang by reducing the size of the implant. The resolution to the struggle between minimizing implant overhang, improving implant bony coverage, and maintaining proper rotation is the anatomically appropriateness in the implant design. Generally, a set of metrics are used to measure the dimensions of the articulating area in the bone. The mediolateral (ML) width of the proximal tibia, distal femur, and patellar, and the anterolateral (AP) length of the proximal tibia and distal femur, and the proximal distal (PD) length of the patella are taken into consideration while designing a knee implant. Furthermore, the ratio between medial and lateral sides of the bone in these dimensional measurements (aspect ratio) is commonly used to depict the asymmetry between the two compartments, which is a representation of the shape of the bone. These measurements and ratios vary with gender and ethnicity, and hence, they need to be devised as per the target population. It is also emphasized through multiple studies that anatomical designs exhibited improved lateroposterior (LP) coverage than the symmetrical standard designs in the ML and MP dimensions. These results may help surgeons and manufacturers to better understand their patient population and improve the fit of the designed implants.

Association rule mining can be a powerful computational tool for exploring complex interactions between high-dimensional exposures and health outcomes. Given the high-dimensional nature of the data, many complex association rules may be identified. To narrow down on the most important rules for hypothesis-generating and future investigation in the context of health research, we need an objective approach to reduce the ruleset. The ranking is often based on the lift, a widely used measure of association strength in data mining. In this paper, we show why the lift-based ranking is undesirable from a population health perspective. We propose a new approach to select rules obtained from association rule mining. This new approach considers both association strength measured by relative risk and the excessive health burden in the target population. We use a case study of rules mined from industrial airborne pollutant mixtures and birth outcomes, comparing rules selected using our proposed approach to those selected using lift.

This study attempts to explore the role of microfinance in promoting entrepreneurship in South Rajasthan. The target population for this research is microfinance beneficiaries from South Rajasthan. The questionnaire is used to collect the information from the respondents. To explore the role of microfinance to promote entrepreneurship in South Rajasthan. The respondents experience related to microfinance facilities, role of financial institution providing microfinance, amount of microcredit, knowledge about microfinance initiatives of government, duration of microcredit, repayment schedules, etc., are collected through the questionnaire from South Rajasthan. Data has been analyzed by using R programming to generate descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analyses. This research provides interesting insights about the significance of microfinance to promote entrepreneurship in South Rajasthan. The study will help the policymakers to analyze the existing microfinance initiative and find the ways to make them more useful and effective.

Practical issues in the design of a dual frame or multiple frame survey are highly related to the characteristics of the target population and the availability of sampling frames. This chapter focuses on issues with estimation using data from dual or multiple frame surveys. Pseudo empirical likelihood methods and the concept of multiplicity are shown to be very useful for point estimation and confidence intervals, especially for estimating population means of binary study variables such as the prevalence of a disease or the proportion of the population with a rare condition.

The present study investigates the relationship between IT organizational culture type and Business Process Management adoption in organizations implementing IT solutions. Specifically, the study investigates how the success of BPM adoption varies by organizational culture type. The target population consisted of IT resources who work in the United States at organizations with at least 50 employees and who have participated in the development and implementation of a BPM initiative involving an IT solution within the last two years. A survey was conducted with 157 anonymous participants representing the target population. The study found the highest level of BPM adoption success was with the adhocracy culture type compared to the market and hierarchy culture types. There is a significant positive correlation between the adhocracy culture type and BPM adoption as measured by BPO. There is also a significant negative correlation between the market culture type and BPM adoption as measured by BPO and PPI. The insights gained by this study can help practitioners make informed decisions on their BPM adoption approach within their IT community and scholars in future research on the relationship between organizational culture and BPM.

Goal of this study was to find common features of icons shared by people from different cultures that can be used to derive guidelines for the design of Universal Icons. In an explorative study, we asked participants to draw Universal Icons for various concepts commonly associated with interface functions such as On/Off, Fast/Slow, Light/Dark, Zoom in/Zoom out. The participants came from different countries, which, considering the number of participants, were divided into three geographical regions: Europe, Japan, and Asia (without Japan). Icon drawings of participants differed in the concept categories depicted as well as across the three geographic regions. Participants from Japan depicted more likely images with reference to humans or nature whereas participants from European countries more likely depicted images of technical artifacts or abstract concepts. Participants from other Asian countries fell in-between these two groups. Results of the study suggest that Universal Icons should use referents from the daily living environment of target users. Pre-studies can help to identify common associations with icon functions in the target populations.

Traditionally, antiarrhythmic strategies have focused almost exclusively on atrial electrophysiological alterations. Unfortunately, these interventions yield very limited success over the long-term and have a high side-effect profile. A number of ‘non-antiarrhythmic’ drugs (i.e., whose main effect is not exerted at ion channel level) have gained increasing attention due to their potential to prevent, delay, or even reverse atrial fibrillation (AF)-related atrial structural remodeling, while lacking the undesirable effects of ion channel blockers. By modifying the substrate upstream of AF, these new strategies are expected to prevent new-onset AF, to delay AF transition to more persistent forms, and/or to prevent recurrent AF. However, to date, with very few the exceptions, there is insufficient evidence to support the wide use of non-conventional antiarrhythmic drugs for AF prophylaxis in clinical practice. It still remains to be established whether this approach is truly effective, by itself or at least in addition to conventional rhythm control strategies. Clarification of the most adequate target population, of the most suitable drug, dose, and timing to intervene is also required.

In this chapter, we will dissect the salient elements of urban planning in terms of theoretical foundations and methodology, in order to demonstrate that in addition to criticism expressed by a certain number of authors regarding its transfer to cities of the South, urban planning does not focus on the key issues faced by local authorities and inhabitants, both in terms of target population groups and the infrastructures and services that should be given priority.

The chapter examines urban housing in Sri Lanka and shows that the housing market is segmented in terms of housing for low- and high-income population. In terms of two affordability indicators: housing cost as a percentage of monthly household income and monthly housing rent as a ratio of weekly household income, low-income households find housing unaffordable. The findings from hedonic rental pricing models provide insights into the manner in which housing characteristics influence rental prices, in different submarkets for urban housing in Sri Lanka. These findings indicate that planning of smaller housing and housing for low-income population should focus on structural characteristics such as floor area, flooring and roofing in an effort to maintain affordability for occupants. On the other hand, planning of larger housing and housing for high-income population, in addition to structural characteristics, location and neighbourhood characteristics need to be carefully considered to ensure the required demand by the target population.

Central nervous system (CNS) metastases are the most common cause of malignant brain tumors in adults. Historically, clinical trials in oncology have only rarely included patients with active CNS metastases, thus leaving gaps in the development of standard methodologies by which to assess trial endpoints. Not only have trial endpoints been variably assessed and defined, but the most clinically relevant outcomes may differ by type of trial. This chapter (1) provides recommendations for more active inclusion of patients with brain metastases into prospective clinical trials, (2) summarizes measures that could be considered as primary or secondary trial endpoints, (3) reviews efforts to develop more standard definitions of trial endpoints, and (4) discusses the selection of trial endpoints most appropriate for the given target population and proposed intervention.

As people age, the differences in health status between individuals become larger. For this reason, there is no universally accepted cutoff for defining an “older” adult. Chronological age itself is less important than biological events in driving the aging process within an individual. However, the use of chronological age is a practical way of defining a target population. In geriatric oncology, 70 years is the most commonly used cutoff for defining patients as older adults. The majority of age-related changes lead to reduced function, but the heterogeneity of the aging process has practical consequences for the assessment of older patients with breast cancer: patients need individualized assessments to determine their biological or functional age. Biological age is believed to reflect a person’s remaining life expectancy and functional reserves, and will influence treatment decisions and predict treatment tolerance. There is no simple way to assess biological age, and one the best clinical tools available to date is a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA).

The increasing need for information on immigrants can scarcely be satisfied by traditional population surveys or censuses. Only migrant-specific surveys allow for the integration of migrant-specific topics. However, when organizing a survey targeting immigrants, challenges concerning the survey setup are even more accentuated compared to traditional surveys. After a short introduction, this chapter first reviews the literature on survey methodology when targeting migrant populations. Second, it provides an overview of how specific migrant surveys, which have been undertaken in Europe since the year 2000, have addressed different challenges. Third, and considering the first two chapters, it reviews the implementation of the Migration-Mobility Survey by presenting the target population, the sampling procedure, the survey design and the data collection process and response rates. The chapter closes with a short overview of the main socio-demographic characteristics of the participants, thus serving as a basis for the following chapters of this book, and a short preview of the planned second wave of the Migration-Mobility Survey.

The majority of individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) in the United States receive no addiction treatment, identifying a large treatment gap. Our current approaches to increasing engagement in treatment have appropriately focused on increasing access to first-line treatments for OUD, including medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and harm-reduction strategies. However, there is population of patients with OUD who have an inadequate response to our current first-line treatments; these patients may be considered to have a treatment-resistant syndrome. The therapeutic community (TC) modality may both (1) increase the diversity of treatment modalities available to a largely unengaged population, addressing the treatment gap, and (2) provide access to a modality with proven effectiveness for OUD patients with markers of poor prognosis, including many of those with treatment-resistant OUD.

This chapter argues that the ambiguity of the Roma camps has facilitated the co-optation of pro-Roma associations. The first part of the chapter discusses the relationship between ambiguity, policy-making and institutional camps, and then focusses on how this ambiguity emerged in Rome. By drawing on policy documents and interviews, the following part scrutinises the ambivalent policy design of the camps, characterised by unclear policy goals and temporal duration, and by an undefined target population. The final section of the chapter unpicks the effects of institutional ambiguity on the framing strategies of subcontracted associations, often accused of contradictorily operating in-between Roma advocacy and compliance with segregation. However, subcontractors draw on this ambiguousness to develop a wide array of discursive strategies that reconcile their work in the camps with the goals of Roma inclusion, which facilitates the persistence of this ghettoisation.

Rare diseases represent a group of conditions affecting a very limited number of patients. Low profitability resulting from the small size of target population coupled with difficulties in conducting the research causes the lack of interest from the pharmaceutical industry. In order to promote research and development of medicines for rare diseases, a special ‘orphan’ legislation was introduced in a number of regions. These measures led to a significant increase in the number of approved orphan molecules. The high per patient cost of orphan drugs, as well the rapid growth of orphan drug sector, raised concerns regarding the sustainable funding of therapies for rare diseases. Rare cancers represent the majority of the current orphan drug market and are often associated with very high revenues. This chapter provides a review of orphan legislations and health technology assessment framework, analyses the position of oncology drugs on the orphan drug market and discusses future perspectives.

3D body scanning has been used broadly including digital human modeling, simulation, ergonomic product design, and so forth. This research used template-registered faces of 336 Koreans in order to use them to design an oxygen mask that provides good fit to Korean faces. The finite element analysis method is applied onto the template-registered faces to predict the contact pressure of a mask design onto different faces. The average and variation of the estimated contact pressure values among all the Korean faces were analyzed for evaluation of the appropriateness of a mask design for Koreans. The proposed method can be usefully applied to find an optimal shape of wearable products for a specific target population.

A common way of interacting with conversational agents is through voice commands. Finding appropriate voice commands can be a challenge for developers and often require empirical methods where participants come up with voice commands for specific tasks. Textual and visual task representations were compared in an online study to assess the influence of semantic priming on spontaneous, user-generated voice commands. Our results indicate that visual representations of tasks lead to a different distribution of used phrases, compared to the textual representation, within the target population. Furthermore, the results suggest that text stimuli can be used to influence user utterances.

A specialized risk estimation and evaluation was carried out to determine if moving a loaded cart could cause musculoskeletal disorders. The implemented methodology for determining the risk consisted of: (a) anthropometric study of 380 male workers for establishing they age and stature. (b) Measuring sustained push force. (c) Determination of synthetic distributions of strength at selected relative handle height. (d) Estimation of basic force limits and compressive strength limits for the target population. The workers’ characteristics resulted from the anthropometric study were age 50 3.69%. The synthetic distribution of strength for pushing activities, considered the following assumptions: absolute handle height of 1.1 m, and the fifteenth percentile as basic force limits. The result of 259 N is smaller 310 N precalculated force limits in tables; the risk was determined as not acceptable. Therefore, it is necessary consider the demographic characteristics of the population when a risk is evaluated.

This chapter addresses the question of whether children and their families behave as actors or mere spectators of their own fate when brought before a juvenile court. This chapter presents research carried out in the Montreal Juvenile Court up to 1950. Family members were responsible for initiating an important number of prosecutions, particularly in cases where children or youths were charged with ‘incorrigibility’. Both children and family members made requests and expressed their views. They interacted with each other as well as with court officials—who could agree or disagree with them. However, those who were its target population did not remain merely passive spectators of a fate decided exclusively by court officials.

This chapter addresses the contribution of the life design paradigm (Savickas et al., J Vocat Behav 75(3):239–250, 2009) and, consequently, career counseling for decent work and social justice. The approach taken herein is justified by the current context of a globalized economy, in which rapid change has led to new employment opportunities, but which also represents challenges to equity and social justice. The starting point of this chapter sees the life design paradigm and Life Design counseling characterized as a method for grounding the discussion on this particular career counseling approach and its contributions for decent work and social justice. Building on this foundation, a presentation of an illustrative case of these practices follows, in which the promotion of the clients’ self-determination is complemented by a supported employment approach in which collaborative action between the target population, family and different community institutions facilitates the integration of disadvantaged populations into the labor market. Finally, conclusions summarize the most useful and important suggestions made throughout this chapter.

In this chapter we put forward more theoretical proposals for gathering evidence of mechanisms. Specifically, the chapter covers the identification of a number of mechanism hypotheses, formulation of review questions for search, and then how to refine and present the resulting evidence. Key issues include increased precision concerning the nature of the hypothesis being examined, attention to differences between the study population (or populations) and the target population of the evidence assessors, and being alert for masking mechanisms, which are other mechanisms which may mask the action of the mechanism being assessed. An outline example concerning probiotics and dental caries is given. (Databases that may be helpful for some searches can be found online in Appendix A).

Innovation and change management are considered core concepts in strategic and leadership management. Openness to innovation and continuous change in organisational dynamics are important factors in determining organisational effectiveness. Innovation is crucial for organisational success, as is coping with organisational changes. This chapter studies the impact of change and innovation management on the performance of employees working in the health sector in northern Lebanon. The authors adopted a quantitative research method, via questionnaires distributed to a target population of 100 employees working in the health sector in North Lebanon. The results showed that change communication (representing organisational dynamics), employee satisfaction with change and employee perception of innovation management positively impact employee performance.

We have seen how, using fractional-factorial designs, we can obtain a substantial amount of information efficiently. Although these techniques are powerful, they are not necessarily intuitive. For years, they were available only to those who were willing to devote the effort required for their mastery, and to their clients. That changed, to a large extent, when Dr. Genichi Taguchi, a Japanese engineer, presented techniques for designing certain types of experiments using a “cookbook” approach, easily understood and usable by a wide variety of people. Most notable among the types of experiments discussed by Dr. Taguchi are two- and three-level fractional-factorial designs. Dr. Taguchi’s original target population was manufacturing engineers, but his techniques are readily applied to many management problems. Using Taguchi methods, we can dramatically reduce the time required to design fractional-factorial experiments.

In the evaluation planning stage (refer to Chap. 5), the preliminary plans for the summative evaluation were developed. These plans provide a framework to prepare for and carry out the summative evaluation. Research can also be conducted during the final stage. Summative evaluation occurs at a predetermined point in the WBID life cycle, usually when major revisions are no longer taking place and the online course has been used by a large number or percentage of the target population. Its purpose is to determine the value and worth of online instruction. Planning, conducting, and reporting summative evaluation and research comprise the last stage of the WBID Model.

Galicia is a territory where historical and contemporary migration processes intertwine. In this chapter, I first explore Galicia’s position as a receiver of returnees, of those Galicians who had left for Latin American in the 1950s and for other European countries in the 1960s. I will also consider patterns of incoming migration by people who may or may not be related to these historic immigration ties, as well as the more recent trend in outgoing migration by Galicians as a result of the current economic crisis. This demographic analysis of population flows is accompanied by a study of the principal migration policies established by the autonomous Galician government. Each of the flows mentioned above can be specifically correlated with a particular policy. These are generally similar in form, but with differing target populations and relevant issues related to the time period involved. The time frame for this analysis includes the past 25 years (1990–2015).

Whale-watching tourism has been growing in recent years in Praia do Forte, northeastern Brazil and to manage this activity in a sustainable manner it is important to determine its carrying capacity. However, an assessment of whale-watching carrying capacity requires an understanding of the biological, social and economic dimensions, as well as consideration of the several stakeholders involved and the current management capacity in place at a specific locality. Here we analyse the development of this activity in Brazil and Praia do Forte in recent years, the current state of knowledge about the potential impacts of whale-watching on humpback whales and the concept of tourism carrying capacity as it applies to whale-watching. We then bring all of these components together to propose an integrated framework to begin its assessment for Praia do Forte, northeastern Brazil. We conclude that whale-watching in Praia do Forte is currently a low-impact activity, with no evident deleterious biological effects on the target population although we still lack all necessary information to establish its carrying capacity. Therefore, we suggest limiting the activity to its current level, until more data and management capacity become available, and make recommendations to improve our understanding of the impacts of this activity and its sustainable management in this locality.

Realistic virtual mannequins, that represent body shapes that occur in the target population, are valuable tools for product developers who design near-body products. Statistical shape modeling is a promising approach to map out the variability of body shapes. The strength of statistical shape models (SSM) is their ability to capture most of the shape variation with only a few shape modes. Unfortunately, the shape variation captured by SSMs of human bodies is often polluted by variations in posture, which substantially reduces the compactness of those models. In this paper, we propose a fast and data driven framework to build a posture invariant SSM. The normalized SSM is shown to be substantially more compact than the non-normalized SSM. Using five shape modes, the normalized SSM is 23% more compact than the non-normalized SSM.

Learning contents creation supported on computer tools has triggered the scientific community for a couple of decades. However, teachers have been facing more and different challenges, namely the emergence of other delivery learning approaches besides the traditional educational settings, the diversification of the student target population, and the recognition of different ways of learning. In education domain, diverse recommender systems have been developed so far for recommending learning activities and more specifically, learning objects. This research work is focused on teaching-learning techniques recommendation to assist teachers by providing them recommendation about which teaching-learning techniques should scaffold teaching-learning activities to be carried out by students. This paper presents a recommender model sustained in diverse elements, namely, a hybrid recommender system, an association rules mechanism to infer possible combinations of teaching-learning techniques, and collaborative work among several actors in education. An evaluation is carried out and the preliminary results are very encouraging, revealing that teachers seem very enthusiastic and motivated to rethink their teaching-learning techniques when designing teaching-learning activities.

Interactive systems for people with disabilities have proved to be an excellent way of providing technological support to incorporate them in everyday life activities. A lot of effort has been devoted to research on models, methods, and techniques that incorporate HCI techniques to the development process of such interactive systems. The diversity of those works focuses on a specific target population such as elderly or children, and to a specific problem like physical, sensory, or cognitive disabilities. In this chapter, we present an agile methodology to develop interactive systems for children with disabilities that we have used to develop real-life projects. Even that each project focuses on different problems they all are related to assist children in everyday activities. The development process includes different HCI techniques for the analysis, design, and evaluation of the resulted works and has been proved to be adequate as it has been used by different development teams. The methodology will be illustrated as long with the some examples of the solutions that we have produced using it.

Zeckhauser examined the shift from single-author works to mostly multiple-author works, a shift in modern trends. He zeroed in on the target population comprising Nobel laureates and the younger population of winners of the John Bates Clark Award. Collaboration was absent among the first ten Nobel Prize winners on their single most cited work. Similar findings were found for the John Bates Clark Award. Besides the increasing needs for specialization, collaboration is lauded for its superadditiveness, where the contribution of two specialists amounts to a value greater than the sum of values of their individual contribution.

In Chap. 2, we address the substantial differences existing among the Western European LTC legislations (namely, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain), both between and within countries, on defining the target population in need of long-term care (LTC). Although the majority of programmes cover functional (mostly Activities of Daily Living [ADL] and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living [iADL]) and cognitive limitations, the assessment process appears in most countries as a patchwork of different rules and practices. These differences can give rise also to differential measurement criteria: the health outcomes may attract different weights within an assessment scale; some limitations are given more importance than others in determining eligibility; and there are legislations that characterize some deficit as necessary and/or sufficient for eligibility.

Quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) are a popular measure employed in cost-utility analysis (CUA) for informing decisions about competing healthcare programs applicable to a target population.