The Health Utilities Index (HUI^®) provides the most comprehensive type of health measure for individual subjects: utility scoring of overall health-related quality of life (HRQL). (HUI^®) has been used world-wide for more than 30 years. It is broadly applicable to all health issues of people 2 years of age and older. Health Utilities Inc. (HUInc) offers 2 sets of HUI-based questionnaire instrumentation. One set of instruments (questionnaire and classification system) HUI Mark 2 and HUI Mark 3 (HUI2/3) assesses people 5 years of age and older. The other set, HUI Preschool (HUI-PS) measures preschool aged children 2 – 5 years of age.

Health dimensions include vision, hearing, speech, ambulation/mobility, pain, dexterity, self-care, emotion and cognition. Each dimension has 3- 6 levels. HUI^® systems describe almost a million unique health states.

HUI^® scoring functions are based on preference measurements from random samples of the general population and represent mean community utilities. The utility scores have interval-scale properties. Overall HRQL scores are on the conventional dead = 0.00 to perfect health = 1.00 scale and are appropriate for calculating quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) in cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses.

HUI^® has been used in hundreds of clinical and general population studies worldwide. There is abundant evidence about the measurement properties of HUI^®. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the HUI^® is acceptable, reliable, valid and responsive to clinically meaningful change. A difference of 0.03 or more in HUI^® scores of HRQL is clearly clinically important.

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