Different disciplinary frameworks in the field of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) may hold different, and potentially contradictory, assumptions about a technology's value or optimal use. For example, economic analyses may be based on outcome measures that are socially controversial or ethically problematic. This can result in economic and ethical evaluations that are difficult to reconcile, leaving HTA short of its goal to provide policy decision-makers with a holistic assessment of technology. We use the case of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) to explore whether the capabilities approach can be used to align economic and ethical concepts of value in assessments of morally challenging health technologies. The capabilities approach is an economic framework which bases wellbeing assessments on a person's abilities, rather than their expressed preferences.

To develop concepts for capabilities relevant to NIPT, we started with Nussbaum's capabilities framework, and conducted a directed qualitative content analysis of interview data from twenty-seven Canadian women with personal experience of this technology.

We found that eight of Nussbaum's ten capabilities related to options or choices that women valued in the context of NIPT, and identified one new capability, Care Taking. NIPT has a meaningful impact on women's capabilities, and capabilities concepts can capture the value of NIPT without relying on health outcomes of ambiguous social and ethical value. A capabilities approach may help reconcile ethical and economic value frameworks for NIPT.

The capabilities approach can contribute to economic evaluations of morally challenging health technologies that better reflect patient preferences and ethical concerns, and may contribute to more holistic HTAs. It provides a framework within which policy analysts from diverse disciplines can communicate about the social and ethical value of morally challenging health technologies. Future research should focus on operationalizing the capabilities approach for use in evaluations of NIPT and other morally challenging health technologies.