Deliberative Groups and Health Measurement

In this essay, I consider what role deliberative groups ought to play in the measurement of health. The introduction considers what deliberative groups can do, what are their costs and risks, when they are likely to be most useful, and how they are best constructed. Section 2 then discusses the need to measure health and the methods that are employed to do so. Section 3 presents the case for relying on deliberative groups. Section 4 criticizes that case, but it allows for a role for deliberative groups in determining the implicit principles governing the assignment of values to health states.