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Decision Thresholds and Changes in Risk for Preventive Treatment

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  • Christophe Courbage
  • Béatrice Rey

Abstract

This paper investigates the notion of treatment threshold for preventive treatment with potential side effects in the context of changes in risk. Changes in risk are defined by the concept of nth‐order stochastic dominance and concern the effectiveness of preventive treatment, side effects, severity of the potential disease, and comorbidity risk. The impact of a riskier environment on the probability of disease threshold above which the preferable decision is to undergo preventive treatment is shown to depend on both mixed risk averse individual preferences and the configuration of increase in risk considered. These results suggest that neglecting differences between risks when evaluating the treatment threshold is likely to lead to substantial errors in most cost‐benefit applications for preventive treatment. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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  • Christophe Courbage & Béatrice Rey, 2016. "Decision Thresholds and Changes in Risk for Preventive Treatment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 111-124, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:25:y:2016:i:1:p:111-124
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.3127
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Felder, Stefan, 2020. "The treatment decision under uncertainty: The effects of health, wealth and the probability of death," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    2. Timo Heinrich & Jason Shachat, 2020. "The development of risk aversion and prudence in Chinese children and adolescents," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 263-287, December.
    3. David Crainich & Louis Eeckhoudt & Mario Menegatti, 2019. "Vaccination as a trade-off between risks," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 5(3), pages 455-472, October.
    4. Brianti, Marco & Magnani, Marco & Menegatti, Mario, 2018. "Optimal choice of prevention and cure under uncertainty on disease effect and cure effectiveness," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 327-342.
    5. Stefan Felder & Thomas Mayrhofer, 2018. "Threshold analysis in the presence of both the diagnostic and the therapeutic risk," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 19(7), pages 1019-1026, September.
    6. Camille Cornand & Maria Alejandra Erazo Diaz & Béatrice Rey & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2023. "On the robustness of higher order attitudes to ambiguity framing," Working Papers 2318, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    7. Desu Liu & Mario Menegatti, 2019. "Optimal saving and health prevention," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 128(2), pages 177-191, October.
    8. Christophe Courbage & Richard Peter, 2021. "On the effect of uncertainty on personal vaccination decisions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(11), pages 2937-2942, November.
    9. Stefan Felder, 2022. "Decision thresholds with genetic testing," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(6), pages 1071-1078, August.

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