Disability Weights Measurement for 228 Causes of Disease in the Korean Burden of Disease Study 2012

Abstract

Disability weight for each disease plays a key role in combining years lived with disability and years of life lost in disability adjusted life year. For the Korean Burden of Disease 2012 study, we have conducted a re-estimation of disability weights for causes of disease by adapting the methodology of a recent Global Burden of Disease study. Our study was conducted through a self-administered web-based survey using a paired comparison (PC) as the main valuation method. A total of 496 physicians and medical college students who were attending in third or fourth grade of a regular course conducted the survey. We applied a probit regression on the PC data and computed the predicted probabilities of each cause of disease from the coefficient estimates of the probit regression. We used 'being dead (1)' and 'full health (0)' as anchor points to rescale the predicted probability of each cause of disease on a scale of 0 to 1. By this method, disability weights for a total of 228 causes of disease were estimated. There was a fairly high correlation between the disability weights of overlapping causes of disease from this study and a previous South Korean study despite the differences in valuation methods and time periods. In conclusion, we have shown that disability weights can be estimated based on a PC by including 'full health' and 'being dead' as anchor points without resorting to a person trade-off. Through developments in the methodology of disability weights estimation from this study, disability weights can be easily estimated and continuously revised.