Origins of the Concept of Quality of Life in Health Care: A Rhetorical Solution to a Political Problem

Abstract

The concept of quality of life emerged in the 1970s as an important new outcome for health care. This paper identifies three independent arenas in which quality of life served as a powerful rhetorical device which was invoked for ‘solving’ major social and medical problems and dilemmas. In the following years, practical quality of life tools were increasingly developed but, it is argued, the perceived value of measuring quality of life was created and sustained by its role as a ‘rhetorical solution’ to an independent set of policy problems.