What Are Values, Utilities, and Preferences? A Clarification in the Context of Decision Making in Health Care, and an Exploration of Measurement Issues

This chapter first aims to clarify the concepts of values, utilities, and preferences, terms that are often used interchangeably but have distinct meaning and that should be used differentially depending on the context. The chapter then describes current methods to assess values, utilities, and preferences as a function of the level of health decision making at hand, i.e., macro-, meso-, or micro-level and the goal of the assessment. It concludes by offering key directions for future research on how to improve current preference elicitation methods.