An Initiative to Develop Capability-Adjusted Life Years (CALYs) in Sweden: Frequency words - Capability statements versions A, B, C

This dataset forms part of a project derived from the concept of Capability-Adjusted Life Years (CALYs) customized for use in Sweden. CALYs serve as a questionnaire-based tool to gauge the quality of life, based on the capability approach, and is intended for Swedish municipalities to assess the cost-effectiveness of various interventions.

This dataset was utilized to examine how the phrasing impacted the CALY instrument. Three different versions were used to describe the six capabilities, aiming to understand their distribution across the Swedish population. These versions varied in the detail of description for each capability and were distributed among distinct population samples. For instance, regarding health:

Version A: "I have good general health (physical and mental) that allows me to work or to do what I want"
Version B: "I have good general health (physical and mental) that almost always (at least 95% of days) allows me to work or to do what I want"
Version C: "I have good general health (physical and mental) that mostly (at least 90% of days) allows me to work or to do what I want"

Additionally, the survey encompassed questions concerning aversion to inequality regarding health, salary, and education.

Conducted in June 2020, the study involved an internet-based survey where 500 Swedish residents for each version were sampled through a commercial web-panel, ensuring proportional representation across age, region, education, and gender. The data was collected anonymously with a PHP-based web application for surveys (limesurvey version 4.2.2, https://www.limesurvey.org) which is operated from a server at Umeå University.

Sampling a large participant pool through a commercial web panel offers administrative ease and speed compared to other methods, potentially yielding higher response rates and simpler data handling. However, the recruitment process and the representativeness of web panel participants may lack transparency, necessitating caution while analyzing and interpreting the data.

The final phrasing for capability statements was determined based on the outcomes and normative considerations, such as legal or policy aspects. If there were negligible differences in answer distributions between the three versions, simplicity led to the preference for Version A.

In Swedish municipalities, economic evaluations often rely on a simplistic cost-savings method, posing a risk that short-term cost-saving interventions might be prioritized over those that yield long-term welfare benefits. CALYs provide a systematic means to gauge the welfare impacts of different interventions, enabling comparisons, such as between improved education versus rehabilitation programs for substance abuse.
The capability approach, pioneered by Amartya Sen (awarded the Swedish Central Bank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1998), measures life quality based on individuals' capabilities – what they can do or be – as opposed to solely focusing on wealth or happiness.

Identifying relevant capabilities involved a Delphi process engaging stakeholders from the Swedish civil society. Initially, there were ten capabilities from a 2015 Swedish governmental investigation (2015:56), with the Delphi process narrowing down the selection to six: Finance & housing, social relations, health, occupation, security, and civil & political rights. Show less..