Impact of transitioning to newer utility on sex-specific quality-adjusted life expectancy in Norway

Norway has mandated the adoption of the new Norwegian EQ-5D-5L value set from September 1, 2025. This transition change was long overdue, as the former value set was based on decades old assessment of health-related quality of life. Current study disseminates the updated quality-adjusted life expectancies (QALE) for the Norwegian population based on age and sex, and quantify how the new norm alters the absolute and proportional shortfall in QALY. The population norm derived from the general population survey by Garratt et al., 2021 has been linked to the most recent Norwegian Lifetable (2023-2024) to estimate the QALE using the Sullivan method. It is compared to the van Hout et al.'s crosswalk QALE norms on the same lifetable. Variable discount rates were applied at 4%, 3% and 2% as per guidelines. Based on the newer population norms the QALE of average population has decreased by 4%. The QALE at birth was previous 69.62 years for men and 69.67 years for women which came down to 64.93 years and 68.77 years respectively. The current study quantifies the diminishing QALEs based on the updated QALE estimates at the same time allowing the estimation of absolute and proportional shortfall.