An argument for favouring estimates of disease burdens based on the perceptions of the general public over those based on the responses of the diseased has been that people living with a disease may have difficulty in placing their experiences in the context of other diseases.26–28 Our new weights were based on the measurement of case-reported outcomes using validated multi-attribute utility instruments. Such instruments use population preferences to create norms for health states rather than for specific conditions. Their use helps to place the experience of people living with injury into a wide context. Our new weights reflect the deviation of actual patient function from population-based norms.