Health Policy Commons^™

Q-Ing For Health – A New Approach To Eliciting The Public’S Views On Health Care Resource Allocation, Rachel M. Baker, John Wildman, Helen Mason, Cam Donaldson

Professor Rachel Baker

The elicitation of societal views about health care priority setting is an important, contemporary research area and there are a number of studies which apply either qualitative techniques or quantitative preference elicitation methods. However there are methodological challenges in connecting qualitative information (what perspectives exist about a subject) with quantitative questions (to what extent are those perspectives ‘supported’ in a wider population). In this paper we present an integrated, mixed-methods approach to the elicitation of public perspectives in two, linked studies applying Q methodology. In the first study we identify three broad viewpoints on the subject of health priorities. In …

Economic Rationality And Health And Lifestyle Choices For People With Diabetes., Rachel M. Baker

Professor Rachel Baker

Economic rationality is traditionally represented by goal-oriented, maximising behaviour, or 'instrumental rationality'. Such a consequentialist, instrumental model of choice is often implicit in a biomedical approach to health promotion and education. The research reported here assesses the relevance of a broader conceptual framework of rationality (which includes 'procedural' and 'expressive' rationality as complements to an instrumental model of rationality) in a health context (type 2 diabetes).

Q methodology was used to derive 'factors' underlying health and lifestyle choices, based on factor analysis of the results of a card sorting procedure undertaken by 27 respondents with type 2 diabetes. These factors …

Q Methodology In Health Economics, Rachel M. Baker, Carl Thompson, Russel Mannion

Professor Rachel Baker

The recognition that health economists need to understand the meaning of data if they are to adequately understand research findings which challenge conventional economic theory has led to the growth of qualitative modes of enquiry in health economics. The use of qualitative methods of exploration and description alongside mainstream quantitative techniques gives rise to a number of epistemological, ontological and methodological challenges: difficulties in accounting for subjectivity in choices, the need for rigour and transparency in method, and problems of disciplinary acceptability to health economists. This paper introduces Q methodology as a means of overcoming some of these challenges. The …