UCLA

Background

The most recent reports of nationally representative health-related quality-of-life (HRQOL) values for the United States used data that were collected over a decade ago.

Objectives

To update these values using data from 2011, stratified by age and sex.

Methods

This study used data from two sources-the 2011 Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS) and the 2011 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). Both are nationally representative surveys of the US noninstitutionalized civilian population. The MEPS was used to calculate four HRQOL scores: categorical self-rated health, mental and physical component summaries from the short form-12 items (SF-12) health survey, and the health state short form-6 dimensions (SF-6D). We also estimated Quality of Well-Being Scale scores from the NHIS. We reported means and quartiles for all continuous scores, stratified by decade of age and sex.

Results

There were 23,906 eligible subjects in the 2011 MEPS and 32,242 eligible subjects in the 2011 NHIS. All age and sex categories had instrument completion rates above 84%. Females reported lower mean scores than did males across all ages and instruments. In general, those in older age groups reported lower scores than did those in younger age groups, with the exception of the mental component summary scores from the SF-12 health survey. When compared with previous reports, these new values were generally lower than those in previous reports but rarely reached minimally important difference criteria.

Conclusions

This report updates US nationally representative age- and sex-stratified estimates for five HRQOL scores using data from 2011. These values are important for use in both generalized comparisons of health status and in cost-effectiveness analyses.