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Quality Adjusted Life Years Calculator

Work out quality adjusted life years instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Quality Adjusted Life Years Calculator

Multiplies years of life by a health utility between 0 and 1, and applies the annuity discount factor used in health technology assessment.

Formula

QALY

QALYs = years x utility; discounted QALYs = utility x (1 - (1 + r)^-years) / r

Worked example

With the default values below, Quality Adjusted Life Years Calculator returns Quality-adjusted life years of 7.000. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Years of lifeaccepts 0.1–80
10
Health-related utilityaccepts 0–1
0.7
Annual discount rateaccepts 0–10
3.5

Results

Quality-adjusted life years
7.000 QALYs
Discounted QALYs
5.822 QALYs
QALYs per year lived
0.700
QALYs lost to discounting
1.178

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2QALY
  3. 3Quality-adjusted life years= 7.000 QALYs
  4. 4Discounted QALYs= 5.822 QALYs
  5. 5QALYs per year lived= 0.700
  6. 6QALYs lost to discounting= 1.178

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 3 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or fees or charges into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 3 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What utility values are used?

They come from instruments such as EQ-5D valued with a national tariff, where 1 is full health and 0 is equivalent to death.

Why 3.5 percent?

It is the discount rate NICE specifies for both costs and health effects in the UK reference case.

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