The moral relevance of personal characteristics in setting health care priorities

Jan Abel Olsen (), Jeff Ricardson, Paul Dolan and Paul Mentzel
Additional contact information
Jan Abel Olsen: Institute of Community Medicine, Postal: University of Tromsø, 9037 Tromsø, Norway
Jeff Ricardson: Centre for Health Program Evaluation, Postal: Monash University, Vic 3081, Australia
Paul Dolan: Sheffield Health Economics Group, Postal: University of Sheffield, UK
Paul Mentzel: Pacific Lutheran University, Postal: Tacoma, WA, USA

No 2002:17, HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme

Abstract: This paper discusses the moral relevance of accounting for various personal characteristics when prioritising between groups of patients. After a review of the results from empirical studies, we discuss the ethical reasons which might explain – and justify – the views expressed in these studies. The paper develops a general framework based upon the causes of ill health and the consequences of treatment. It then turns to the question of the extent to which a personal characteristic – and the eventual underlying ethical justification of its relevance – could have any relationships to these causes and consequences. We attempt to disentangle those characteristics that may reflect a potentially relevant justification from those which violate widely accepted principles of social justice.

Keywords: Health care priorities; Ethics; Personal responsibilities; Consequences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 I31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2009-06-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2002/HERO2002_17.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2002_017

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in HERO Online Working Paper Series from University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme HERO / Department of Health Management and Health Economics P.O. Box 1089 Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kristi Brinkmann Lenander ().