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A Fair Test of the Fair Innings?

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  • Adam Oliver

    (London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, a.j.oliver@lse.ac.uk)

Abstract

Priority setting in health care under conventional rules of health economic evaluation is based upon the ethos of attempting to maximize post-treatment health gain given available health care resources. In his later years, Alan Williams advocated the ``fair innings argument,'' which balances differences in whole lifetime experiences of health with differences in post-treatment outcomes when prioritizing people for health care. This article reports a study that presented respondents with a number of abstract health care decision contexts in an attempt to test the extent to which post-treatment health maximization, the fair innings argument, or, indeed other ``decision rules,'' are evident in the respondents' answers. The results indicate that the most commonly observed decision rule differs substantially across health care contexts, and therefore imply that rather than pursue an overarching decision rule, it may be more appropriate to vary the rule according to the particular health care decision context under consideration.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Oliver, 2009. "A Fair Test of the Fair Innings?," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 29(4), pages 491-499, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:29:y:2009:i:4:p:491-499
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X09336076
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Alan Williams, 1997. "Intergenerational Equity: An Exploration of the ‘Fair Innings’ Argument," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(2), pages 117-132, March.
    2. Magnus Johannesson, 2001. "Should we aggregate relative or absolute changes in QALYs?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(7), pages 573-577, October.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Smeele, Nicholas V.R. & Chorus, Caspar G. & Schermer, Maartje H.N. & de Bekker-Grob, Esther W., 2023. "Towards machine learning for moral choice analysis in health economics: A literature review and research agenda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 326(C).

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