Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2007Mortality-Risk Valuation and Age
This article addresses whether a single value of statistical life (VSL) should be applied to …
This article addresses whether a single value of statistical life (VSL) should be applied to all age groups or whether lower values should be used for the elderly, recognizing that their life expectancies are shorter than those of younger people. Surveys of different age groups' willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality-risk reductions can potentially help resolve this issue. The 36 studies reviewed suggest that the literature is split on whether older people have a lower WTP…
Preferences/Values | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Climate/Environment | College | Graduate | Critical Thinking/Analysis -
ReviewPublication 2006Ethical Issues in Resource Allocation, Research, and New Product Development
Ethical dilemmas arising in setting priorities among interventions and among individuals in need of care …
Ethical dilemmas arising in setting priorities among interventions and among individuals in need of care are most acute when needs are great and resources few. This chapter from the Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries 2nd edition addresses some of these concerns, identifying some of the principal ethical issues that arise in the development and allocation of effective interventions for developing countries and discussing some alternative resolutions. Resource allocation in health and elsewhere should satisfy two main…
Preferences/Values | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Culture/Society | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2000Discipline of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is a general discipline, based on the use of some foundational principles, which …
Cost-benefit analysis is a general discipline, based on the use of some foundational principles, which are not altogether controversial, but have nevertheless considered plausibility. Divisiveness increases as various additional requirements are imposed. There is a trade-off here between easier usability (through locked-up formulae) and more general acceptability (through allowing parametric variations). The paper, by Amartya Sen, examines and scrutinizes the merits and demerits of these additional requirements. The particular variant of cost-benefit approach that is…
Preferences/Values | Priority Setting/Ethics | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Culture/Society | Economics/Finance | Government/Law -
ArticlePublication 2000Preference-Based Measures in Economic Evaluation in Health Care
Estimating preferences for states of health has been an active area of research in recent …
Estimating preferences for states of health has been an active area of research in recent years. Unlike psychophysical approaches, which discriminate levels of health status, preference-based approaches incorporate values or utilities for health outcomes and can be used in cost-effectiveness analyses to aid resource allocation decisions. This chapter considers issues and controversies involved in using preference-based measures in economic evaluation in health care, with a particular emphasis on cost-utility analysis and the estimation of quality-adjusted…
Preferences/Values | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health/Medicine | North America | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2000Valuing Mortality Risk: Theory and Practice
This article discusses the theoretical foundation and empirical methods for estimating the value of a …
This article discusses the theoretical foundation and empirical methods for estimating the value of a statistical life (VSL). VSL is defined by individuals' preferences for small changes in risk and income, and often used by environmental and other economists to measure the monetary value of reduced mortality risk. The article reviews the dependence of VSL on age, income, baseline mortality risk, and latency.
Preferences/Values | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Policy/Regulation | College | Graduate | Critical Thinking/Analysis -
ReviewPublication 1982Decision Analysis: An Overview
This article, written for the non-decision analyst, describes what decision analysis is, what it can …
This article, written for the non-decision analyst, describes what decision analysis is, what it can and cannot do, why one should care to do this, and how one does it. Keeney describes decision analysis as "a formalization of common sense for decision problems which are too complex for informal use of common sense." He provides a more technical definition also, describing decision analysis as "a philosophy, articulated by a set of logical axioms, and a methodology…
Preferences/Values | Decision Theory | Decision Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense | Science/Technology -
ReviewPublication 1978Basic Principles of ROC Analysis
The limitations of diagnostic "accuracy" as a measure of decision performance require introduction of the …
The limitations of diagnostic "accuracy" as a measure of decision performance require introduction of the concepts of the "sensitivity" and "specificity" yet even these do not provide a unique description of diagnostic performance because they depend on the arbitrary selection of a decision threshold. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is shown to be a simple yet complete empirical description of this decision threshold effect, indicating all possible combinations of the relative frequencies of the…
Test Performance | Clinical Care | Health/Medicine