title: Is Health Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) a valid indicator for health systems evaluation?
abstract: The purpose of this review is to do a discussion about the use of the HRQoL as a health measure of the populations that enable to analyze its potential use as a measure of development and efficiency of health systems. The principal use of the HRQoL is in health technologies economics evaluation; however this measure can be use in public health when need to know the health state of population. The WHO recognizes its potential use but its necessary to do a discussion about your difficulties for its application and restrictions for its use as a performance indicator for the health systems. The review show the different aspects about the use of HRQoL how a measure of efficiency ot the health system, each aspect identified in the literature is analyzed and discussed, developing the pros and cons of their possible use, especially when it comes as a cardinal measure. The analysis allows recognize that measuring HRQoL in countries could serve as a useful indicator, especially when it seeks to measure the level of health and disease, as do most of the indicators of current use. However, the methodological constraints that do not allow comparability between countries especially when you have large socioeconomic differences have yet to be resolved to allow comparison between different regions.
authors.affiliation: Fundación Salutia, Centro de investigación en Salud, Bogotá, Colombia ; Doctarado en Salud Publica - Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Romero
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Health Economics and Management, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vivas-Consuelo
authors.affiliation: Research Group on Health Economics, Universidad de Cartagena, Cartagena, Colombia ; Research and Teaching Center, Hospital Infantil Napoleón Franco Pareja, Cartagena, Colombia.
authors.forename: Nelson
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Alvis-Guzman
keywords: Life Expectancies; Quality of Healthcare public health; Quality of life