Self-Reported Health Status of the General Adult U.S. Population as Assessed by the EQ-5D and Health Utilities Index

Abstract

This study aimed to describe the self-reported health status of the general adult U.S. population using 3 multi-attribute preference-based measures: the EQ-5D, Health Utilities Index Mark 2 (HUI2), and Mark 3 (HUI3).

We surveyed the general adult U.S. population using a probability sample with oversampling of Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks. Respondents to this home-visit survey self-completed the EQ-5D and HUI2/3 questionnaires. Overall health index scores of the target population and selected subgroups were estimated and construct validity of these measures was assessed by testing a priori hypotheses.

Completed questionnaires were collected from 4048 respondents (response rate: 59.4%). The majority of the respondents were women (52.0%); the mean age of the sample was 45 years, with 14.8% being 65 or older. Index scores (standard errors) for the general adult U.S. population as assessed by the EQ-5D, HUI2, and HUI3 were 0.87 (0.01), 0.86 (0.01), and 0.81 (0.01), respectively. Generally, younger, male and Hispanic or non-Hispanic black adults had higher (better) index scores than older, female and other racial/ethnic adults; index scores were higher with higher educational attainment and household income. The 3 overall preference indices were strongly correlated (Pearson's r: 0.67–0.87), but systematically different, with intraclass correlation coefficients between these indices ranging from 0.59 to 0.77.

This study provides U.S. population norms for self-reported health status on the EQ-5D, HUI2, and HUI3. Although these measures appeared to be valid and demonstrated similarities, health status assessed by these measures is not exactly the same.