Valuing health and longevity in regulatory analysis: current issues and challenges

Archive ouverte

Robinson, Lisa A. | Hammitt, James K

Edité par CCSD ; Edward Elgar -

International audience. Economic valuation of health risks plays an important role in informing decisions about environmental, health and safety regulations, indicating the extent to which those affected by a policy or program would agree to exchange income for the benefits it provides. For mortality risks, this willingness to pay is typically expressed as the “Value per Statistical Life” or VSL. The VSL is not the value of a particular individual’s life. Instead, it measures the rate at which individuals are willing to substitute income for small reductions in their own mortality risks within a defined time period. Currently, US agencies rely on similar research but apply varying VSL estimates, raising concerns related to both the standardization and the differentiation of their values. More standardization seems desirable if agencies continue to follow similar approaches. However, the differences in the risks and populations addressed across agencies suggests that greater differentiation in their VSL estimates is desirable, given that preferences for exchanging income for risk reductions vary depending on these characteristics. The approaches used to value nonfatal illnesses and injuries are more diverse, largely because willingness to pay estimates are lacking for many outcomes of concern. Analysts often use estimates of monetized quality-adjusted life years or averted costs as rough proxies. While more willingness to pay research is needed for nonfatal risks, in the interim the methods used to develop these proxy measures could be improved based on recent research and expert panel recommendations.

• Description
• Sujet/Public
• Outil
• Outil d'anticipation
• Mémoire et thèse
• Gestion