Health values and prospect theory: A comment

In a recent volume of Medical Decision Making, Treadwell and Lenert stated that under prospect theory, community members compared with patients undere stimate the utility of health improvements. In this comment, the authors sh ow that this statement holds only for a subset of possible preference funct ions. Furthermore, the authors provide arguments that, in general, the rate r's current health state is not the appropriate reference level if applying prospect theory to health valuations.