PNS248 A Hierarchical Bayes Approach in Exploring Individual Heterogeneity: An Application on Health State Valuation Using a Discrete Choice Experiment

Abstract

Hierarchical Bayes (HB) is widely used in market research to estimate choice models and generate respondents’ utilities. HB is known for the advantage of including individual heterogeneity when evaluating preferences. Herein we demonstrate the usability, advantage and performance of HB in estimating health preference utilities for the Short Form 6 Dimension version 2 (SF-6Dv2) from an online Discrete Choice Experiments (DCE). An online panel of general population in China participated in a web survey. Each participant was randomized to complete 8 DCE tasks, in which a pairwise choice was firstly made between two health states based on SF-6Dv2, followed by a comparison between the worse of them and death. This second task further allows the direct anchoring of the latent utilities onto the 0-1 death-full health scale. Socio-demographic characteristics and self-assessed health, quality of life were also collected. Both conditional logit model (CL, which assumes a homogeneous preference) and an HB model that allows for preference heterogeneity were used. Monotonicity, the number of significant levels and other model fit statistics were employed for the comparison. A total of 447 participants (41.6% <40 years old, 51.5% female, 69% healthy) who passed the quality threshold were utilized in the analysis. The CL model weighted by trading life had the best fit with 3 inconsistencies, 6 insignificances, and a Root Likelihood (RLH) statistics of 0.57. The HB model also had 3 inconsistencies, one insignificant level, and an RLH of 0.73. The ‘Pits’ state utility was estimated to be 0.44, 0.24 and 0.06 for respondents preferring painful life over peaceful death, neutrals and first group opponents, respectively, based on the HB model. The HB demonstrated a better fit and a more realistic model for estimating utilities than CL. It had the power to elicit the differences preferences between subgroups based on different choice behaviours.