Australian Preferences for Prenatal Screening: A Discrete Choice Experiment Comparing Metropolitan and Rural/Regional Areas

Amber Salisbury (), Sarah Norris, Alison Pearce and Kirsten Howard
Additional contact information
Amber Salisbury: University of Sydney
Sarah Norris: University of Sydney
Alison Pearce: University of Sydney, A Joint Venture with Cancer Council NSW
Kirsten Howard: University of Sydney

Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 2025, vol. 23, issue 3, No 11, 493-506

Abstract: Abstract Background Non-invasive prenatal testing has the potential to be a useful genetic screening tool in Australia. However, concerns have been raised about its cost, commercial provision, the psychological impacts of the screening process, and disparities in access experienced by rural and regional communities. Aims The aims of this study are (1) to estimate Australian preferences for features of prenatal screening; (2) to explore potential variations in preferences between metropolitan and rural/regional communities; (3) to estimate the extent to which respondents are willing to trade-off between attributes, using willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to wait estimates. Methods A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted with 12 choice tasks. The DCE recruited participants from metropolitan (n = 160) and rural/regional (n = 168) locations across Australia. Mixed logit and latent class analyses were conducted and WTP and willingness to wait were calculated. Results Both metropolitan and rural/regional preferences were significantly impacted by the false-positive rate, false-negative rate, and cost. In addition, rural preferences were significantly impacted by the scope of the conditions covered, the inconclusive rate, and wait times. The number of screening tests and revealing the sex of the foetus were not significant within either group. Willingness to pay estimates ranged from AU$13 to avoid a test with a 1% increase in the false-positive rate to AU$323 to screen for a wide range of conditions. Conclusions This study highlights the importance of considering differing preferences between rural and metropolitan populations when delivering prenatal screening. Further, this study provides Australian-specific WTP estimates to be incorporated into economic evaluations.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40258-024-00938-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:aphecp:v:23:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s40258-024-00938-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40258

DOI: 10.1007/s40258-024-00938-5

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Health Economics and Health Policy is currently edited by Timothy Wrightson

More articles in Applied Health Economics and Health Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().