Preferences for ‘life‐saving’ programmes: Small for all or gambling for the prize?

Dorte Gyrd‐Hansen and Ivar Sønbø Kristiansen

Health Economics, 2008, vol. 17, issue 6, 709-720

Abstract: Much of the literature on the value of life is based on the valuation of small reductions in mortality risk with many remaining life years if the fatal outcome is avoided. In contrast, this paper explores valuations of interventions which with varying probability levels offer smaller or moderate life year health gains. We interviewed 2900 respondents about hypothetical therapies that involved life year gains in the range of 1–180 months with a probability of 1 to 1/180, presented both in individual and societal perspectives. The results of the study indicate that the value of the hypothetical treatments is not a simple function of probability and gain. Rather, respondents seem to adopt thresholds when they value treatment offers. This results in kinked utility functions where the expected individual utility is significantly decreased when the gain in life expectancy is 6 months or less, and markedly increased if the probability of gains exceeds 1/12. There were only small differences in valuations across the individual and societal perspectives, suggesting that preferences for dispersion of health gains are not only a reflection of equity considerations. If the results of this study reflect widespread preferences, the standard methods in cost‐effectiveness/cost‐utility analysis may misinform decision makers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1288

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:wly:hlthec:v:17:y:2008:i:6:p:709-720

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().