Do People Value Their Own Future Health Differently from Others' Future Health?

John Cairns and Marjon van der Pol

Medical Decision Making, 1999, vol. 19, issue 4, 466-472

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether time preferences for own health are the same as time preferences for others' health. A random sample of the general public was sent a postal questionnaire containing six choices between ill health in the near future and ill health in the further future. They were asked to indicate the maximum duration of more distant ill health they would be willing to accept in return for a specified delay in the onset of the period of ill health. For half of the sample the questions were set in the context of their own health and for the other half in terms of others' health. The median implied discount rates were not statistically different, 0.061 for own health and 0.062 for others' health. A multilevel analysis of the determinants of these implied discount rates provided additional evidence of the similarity of time preferences for own health and others' health. Key words: intertemporal preferences; own versus other's health. (Med Decis Making 1999; 19:466-472)

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X9901900414 (text/html)

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:sae:medema:v:19:y:1999:i:4:p:466-472

DOI: 10.1177/0272989X9901900414

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Medical Decision Making
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().