Book Review: Reassessing the Role of Well-Being, Suffering and Freedom in Measuring Generic Values of Health

Abstract

“Why do we need to measure health, and what aspects of health need to be measured?” This is the fundamental question posed by Daniel Hausman in his book Valuing Health: Well-being, Freedom and Suffering. His book focusses on ‘generic health measurements’ that is- measuring the overall value of health rather than health itself. He broadly deals with conceptual, technical and normative values of health which directs policy issues as well as fund allocation in national health sector. This book, meant for a wider audience, is a multi-disciplinary approach to move beyond economic evaluation approaches. Hausman achieves this by engaging with the philosophical, social and policy debates relevant to the health sector (ch1, p2-5).

Keywords: Well-being, freedom, suffering, cost-effectiveness analysis