According to the literature, ranking exercise is considered to be a simple, easy to use and accurate method to explore public views and opinions. Specifically, it was used to investigate whether and how the Cypriots consider age, healthy lifestyle, type of disease, severity of disease, health improvement and cost of treatment to be important criteria for resources allocation, as well as to describe their preferences and opinions concerning the importance and usefulness of competing health care priority setting criteria. Moreover, the association between potential influential factors such as gender, age and educational background of the study participants and their views and preferences was also examined.