The effects of age and disability on valuations of health states used in deriving QALYs have not been examined. We compared the valuations of seven states of immobility and pain given by 88 subjects aged 20–89 years, and of various degrees of disability. They were asked to score each state, their present health and death, on a range from ‘best’ to ‘worst’ health. Only two states of health (no disability but moderate pain, and slight disability and moderate pain) were valued differently by older subjects. Disabled subjects tended to rate most ill-health states more adversly, and to rate death as substantially better than more severe states of ill-health. The development of explicit valuations of survival should take into account differences caused by disability, and examine other dimensions of illness experience.