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Development of a questionnaire to elicit public preferences regarding health inequalities

Author

Listed:
  • Rebecca Shaw
  • Paul Dolan
  • Aki Tsuchiya
  • Alan Williams
  • Peter Smith

    (Centre for Health Economics, The University of York)

  • Roger Burrows

Abstract

A review of relevant literature within health economics, psychology and moral philosophy suggests that people want resource allocation decisions in health to be informed by considerations of equity as well as efficiency. A number of empirical studies demonstrate that people are willing to sacrifice overall health benefits for a more equal distribution of health (Dolan and Shaw, 2001a). However, it is not clear from the available evidence exactly which distributional considerations people want to take into account when allocating resources. Further, on the whole, discussions about equity are rarely cast in quantitative terms (but see Olsen, 1994) and so it is not clear to what extent people want various equity notions to be taken into account. In this study funded by the ESRC Health Variations Programme, we have elicited the views of the general public in order to quantify people’s preferences regarding equity in health. The two-year study first explored whether people wish to give differential priority to groups with different characteristics (such as age, family responsibilities and the extent to which people are ‘responsible’ for their illness). The study then derived a way of asking questions on various inequality issues which enable people to indicate their strength of preference for different sorts of reduction in health inequalities. This paper reports upon these attempts to present to members of the general public meaningful trade-offs between efficiency and equity. The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of the questions and to indicate how they might be used by other researchers. Part A shows how the questions were developed from a series of pilot interviews and made suitable for use in either an interview setting or postal survey. Part B provides some guidance on administration and reproduces the questions in order to make them available to interested researchers and policy makers. Those readers whose main aim is to access the questions, may wish to move straight in to Part B.

Suggested Citation

  • Rebecca Shaw & Paul Dolan & Aki Tsuchiya & Alan Williams & Peter Smith & Roger Burrows, 2001. "Development of a questionnaire to elicit public preferences regarding health inequalities," Working Papers 040cheop, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    • Handle: RePEc:chy:respap:40cheop
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan Karnon & Aki Tsuchiya & Paul Dolan, 2005. "Developing a relativities approach to valuing the prevention of non‐fatal work‐related accidents and ill health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(11), pages 1103-1115, November.
    2. Dolan, Paul & Tsuchiya, Aki, 2009. "The social welfare function and individual responsibility: Some theoretical issues and empirical evidence," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 210-220, January.
    3. Micaela Pinho & Anabela Botelho, 2018. "Inference Procedures to Quantify the Efficiency–Equality Trade-Off in Health from Stated Preferences: A Case Study in Portugal," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 503-513, August.
    4. Abasolo, Ignacio & Tsuchiya, Aki, 2004. "Exploring social welfare functions and violation of monotonicity: an example from inequalities in health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 313-329, March.
    5. Ignacio Abásolo & Aki Tsuchiya, 2013. "Is more health always better for society? Exploring public preferences that violate monotonicity," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(4), pages 539-563, April.
    6. Richard Cookson & Shehzad Ali & Aki Tsuchiya & Miqdad Asaria, 2018. "E‐learning and health inequality aversion: A questionnaire experiment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(11), pages 1754-1771, November.
    7. Tsuchiya, Aki & Williams, Alan, 2005. "A "fair innings" between the sexes: are men being treated inequitably?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 277-286, January.
    8. Xesfingi, Sofia & Vozikis, Athanassios, 2014. "Citizens’ Preferences on Health Care Expenditure Allocation: Evidence from Greece," MPRA Paper 63419, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Peter C. Smith & Andrew Street, 2005. "Measuring the efficiency of public services: the limits of analysis," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(2), pages 401-417, March.
    10. Tsuchiya, Aki & Dolan, Paul, 2007. "Do NHS clinicians and members of the public share the same views about reducing inequalities in health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 2499-2503, June.
    11. Simon McNamara & John Holmes & Abigail K. Stevely & Aki Tsuchiya, 2020. "How averse are the UK general public to inequalities in health between socioeconomic groups? A systematic review," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(2), pages 275-285, March.

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    Keywords

    inequality; rationing;

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