An inquiry into the different perspectives that can be used when eliciting preferences in health.

There are a number of perspectives that an individual could be asked to adopt in studies designed to elicit preferences for use in informing resource allocation decisions in health care. This paper develops a conceptual framework that clearly distinguishes between six different perspectives. It is argued that the appropriate perspective to use depends on normative considerations and the particular policy context to which it will be applied. We suggest a future research agenda that explicitly addresses these considerations and which involves direct empirical investigation into the effect of perspective on preferences. Copyright 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.