Willingness to Pay for Implementation of an Environmentally Friendly Pharmaceutical Policy in Finland—A Discrete Choice Experiment Study

Lasse Alajärvi, Aku-Ville Lehtimäki, Johanna Timonen and Janne Martikainen
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Lasse Alajärvi: School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland
Aku-Ville Lehtimäki: School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland
Johanna Timonen: School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland
Janne Martikainen: School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, FI-70211 Kuopio, Finland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: The use of pharmaceuticals is their main pathway to the environment, making the public a major stakeholder in environmentally friendly pharmaceutical policies, including an environmental classification system for medicines. We studied the Finnish adult population’s ( n = 2030) preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for an environmentally friendly pharmaceutical policy by means of an online survey employing a discrete choice experiment (DCE). We also studied the relative importance of the policy attributes, namely, the environmental impact, geographical scope, available information about the environmental impact of a pharmaceutical, and the effect of the respondents’ general environmental attitudes on the WTP. The total annual WTP of the Finnish adult population ranges from 37 million to 134 million euros, depending on the attribute levels. Moreover, the environmental attitude of a respondent had a significant impact on the WTP. Generally, the environmental impact of the policy was the most important attribute, the geographical scope of the policy the second, and information about the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals was the third most important attribute. However, the most environmentally friendly respondents preferred information as the second important attribute. This study provides insights into the environmental valuations of the public to be used in preparing new pharmaceutical policy measures.

Keywords: willingness to pay; survey; pharmaceuticals; environment; sustainability; population (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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