A new axiomatic approach to the evalution of population health

In this paper we explore the implications of fundamental principles for the evaluation of population health. We formalize those principles as axioms for social preferences over dis- tributions of health for a given population. We single out several focal population health evaluation functions, which represent social preferences, as a result of combinations of those axioms. Our results provide rationale for popular theories in health economics, such as the unweighted aggregation of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) or healthy years equivalents (HYEs) and generalizations of the two, aimed to capture concerns for distributive justice, without resorting to controversial assumptions over individual preferences.