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Measuring the social importance of concentration or dispersion of individual health benefits

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  • Eva Rodríguez‐Míguez
  • José‐Luis Pinto‐Prades

Abstract

In this paper we address the importance of distributive preferences in the social valuation of quality‐adjusted life years (QALYs). We propose a social welfare function that generalises the functions traditionally used in the health economic literature. The novelty is that, depending on the individual health gains, this function can represent either preferences for concentrating or preferences for spreading total gain or both together, an issue which has not been addressed until now. Based on an experiment, we observe that this generalisation provides a suitable approximation to the sampled social preferences. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Eva Rodríguez‐Míguez & José‐Luis Pinto‐Prades, 2002. "Measuring the social importance of concentration or dispersion of individual health benefits," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(1), pages 43-53, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:11:y:2002:i:1:p:43-53
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.643
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Dolan, Paul, 1998. "The measurement of individual utility and social welfare," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 39-52, January.
    2. Johannesson, Magnus & Gerdtham, Ulf-G, 1996. "A note on the estimation of the equity-efficiency trade-off for QALYs," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 359-368, June.
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    6. Wagstaff, Adam, 1991. "QALYs and the equity-efficiency trade-off," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 21-41, May.
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    1. Paul Dolan & Rebecca Shaw & Aki Tsuchiya & Alan Williams, 2005. "QALY maximisation and people's preferences: a methodological review of the literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 197-208, February.
    2. Abellán Perpiñán, José Mª & Sánchez Martínez,Fernando I. & Martínez Pérez, Jorge E., 2007. "La medición del bienestar social relacionado con la salud/The Measurement of the Health Related Social Welfare," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 25, pages 927-950, Diciembre.
    3. Michaël Schwarzinger & Jean‐Louis Lanoë & Erik Nord & Isabelle Durand‐Zaleski, 2004. "Lack of multiplicative transitivity in person trade‐off responses," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 171-181, February.
    4. Bleichrodt, Han & Doctor, Jason & Stolk, Elly, 2005. "A nonparametric elicitation of the equity-efficiency trade-off in cost-utility analysis," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 655-678, July.
    5. Shehzad Ali & Aki Tsuchiya & Miqdad Asaria & Richard Cookson, 2017. "How Robust Are Value Judgments of Health Inequality Aversion? Testing for Framing and Cognitive Effects," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 37(6), pages 635-646, August.
    6. Richardson, Jeff & Sinha, Kompal & Iezzi, Angelo & Maxwell, Aimee, 2012. "Maximising health versus sharing: Measuring preferences for the allocation of the health budget," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1351-1361.
    7. Kvamme, Maria Knoph & Gyrd-Hansen, Dorte & Olsen, Jan Abel & Kristiansen, Ivar Sønbø, 2010. "Increasing marginal utility of small increases in life-expectancy?: Results from a population survey," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 541-548, July.
    8. Richardson, Jeff & McKie, John, 2007. "Economic evaluation of services for a National Health Scheme: The case for a fairness-based framework," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 785-799, July.
    9. Duncan Mortimer, 2006. "The Value of Thinly Spread QALYs," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 24(9), pages 845-853, September.
    10. Dorte Gyrd‐Hansen & Ivar Sønbø Kristiansen, 2008. "Preferences for ‘life‐saving’ programmes: Small for all or gambling for the prize?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(6), pages 709-720, June.
    11. Lars Østerdal, 2009. "The lack of theoretical support for using person trade-offs in QALY-type models," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 10(4), pages 429-436, October.
    12. Aki Tsuchiya, 2012. "Distributional Judgements in the Context of Economic Evaluation," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 38, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Lars Peter Østerdal, 2004. "QALYs, Person Trade-Offs, and the Pareto Principle," Discussion Papers 04-10, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    14. Mæstad, Ottar & Norheim, Ole Frithjof, 2012. "A universal preference for equality in health? Reasons to reconsider properties of applied social welfare functions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(10), pages 1836-1843.
    15. Donna Rowen & John Brazier & Clara Mukuria & Anju Keetharuth & Arne Risa Hole & Aki Tsuchiya & Sophie Whyte & Phil Shackley, 2016. "Eliciting Societal Preferences for Weighting QALYs for Burden of Illness and End of Life," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(2), pages 210-222, February.
    16. Ewa Kocot & Sabina Denkowska & Kamil Fijorek, 2022. "Are Measures of Health Status for the Total Population Good Proxies for the Health of the Older Population in International Comparison Studies?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-15, June.
    17. Jennifer Whitty & Sharyn Rundle-Thiele & Paul Scuffham, 2012. "Insights from triangulation of two purchase choice elicitation methods to predict social decision making in healthcare," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 113-126, March.

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