The capability approach by Amartya Sen (Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, 1998) measures quality of life in terms of capabilities; i.e. what individuals can do or be, as opposed to measuring quality of life in terms of wealth or happiness.

Practical considerations limit the number of capabilities that can be taken into account, and what capabilities are most relevant for quality of life may differ between contexts. For example, access to drinking-water is taken for granted by most people in Sweden in contrast to other countries that have areas that suffer from water shortage.

The purpose of the study was to collect information on what capabilities are perceived as important in the Swedish context. The starting point were the following 10 capabilities from a Swedish governmental investigation in 2015 : Time, Financial situation, Health, Political resources, Knowledge, Living environment, Occupation, Social relations, Security, and Housing.

The data was collected with a cross-sectional web based survey among health care related researchers and student

Data contains personal data

Language

English

Method and outcome

Unit of analysis

Individual

Population

Researchers and students in health related subjects from 5 Swedish universities

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling procedure

Non-probability: Availability
Non-probability: Purposive

The study population consisted of a convenience sample of Swedish speaking researchers and doctoral student at 5 Swedish universities, totaling in about 830 potential participatants:
- about 100 from the Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet
- about 440 from the Medical Faculty at Lund University
- about 40 from the Unit of Epidemiology and Global Health at Umeå University
- about 180 from the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health and the Department of Public Health and Care Science at Uppsala University
- about 70 from the University Health Care Research Center at Region Örebro County.

171 replied, but 4 did not explicitly give consent to participate. This resulted in a response rate of about 20% (167/830).

We sent an email invitation with information and a link to the web survey on May 28 2016, followed by a reminder on June 15 2016.

Time period(s) investigated

2016-05-28 – 2016-06-20

Variables

Number of individuals/objects

167

Response rate/participation rate

20%

Data format / data structure

Numeric

Text

Data collection

Mode of collection: Self-administered questionnaire: web based
Time period(s) for data collection: 2016-05-28 – 2016-06-20
Source of the data: Research data, Research data: Unpublished

Geographic coverage

Geographic spread

Geographic location: Sweden

Lowest geographic unit

Country

Highest geographic unit

Country

Administrative information

Responsible department/unit

Department of Epidemiology and Global Health

Contributor(s)

Inna Feldman - Uppsala University, Department of Public Health and Caring Science

Björn Ekmann - Lund University, Department of Clinical Sciences

Anna-Karin Hurtig - Umeå university, Department of Epidemiology and Global Health

Lars Hagberg - Örebro University, University Health Care Research Center

Funding

Funding agency: Forte
Funding agency's reference number: 2014-145 and 2018-00143

Topic and keywords

Research area

Health care service and management, health policy and services and health economy (Standard för svensk indelning av forskningsämnen 2011)

Economics (Standard för svensk indelning av forskningsämnen 2011)

Philosophy (Standard för svensk indelning av forskningsämnen 2011)

Keywords

Welfare economics, Health economics, Capability approach, Extra-welfarism

Publications

Månsdotter, A., Ekman, B., Meili, K. W., Feldman, I., Hagberg, L., Hurtig, A.-K., & Lindholm, L. (2020). Towards capability-adjusted life years in public health and social welfare : Results from a Swedish survey on ranking capabilities. PLoS ONE, 15(12), Article e0242699. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242699
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-87752
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242699

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