Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions and Health Improvements: A Life Expectancy Framework to Harmonize Policy...

Area of Science:

• Health Economics
• Public Policy Analysis
• Biostatistics

Background:

• Public policies significantly influence individual mortality risk.
• Traditional monetization of longevity gains uses distinct metrics: VSL, VSLY, and WTP-QALY.
• Existing methods for valuing longevity gains lack a unified framework.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a unified approach for monetizing longevity gains from public policies.
• To integrate health and longevity preferences for consistent valuation.
• To enable the estimation of VSL, VSLY, and WTP-QALY within a single framework.

Main Methods:

• Adopting life expectancy gains as the unifying metric.
• Incorporating preference-based information on health and longevity.
• Developing a framework to conceptually link individual-level valuation measures.

Main Results:

• The proposed approach generates three conceptually linked measures: VSL, VSLY, and WTP-QALY.
• Explicit integration of health preferences allows for WTP-QALY estimation alongside VSL and VSLY.
• The framework offers advantages over existing direct and modeling methods.

Conclusions:

• The proposed framework facilitates consistent decision-making across diverse policy domains.
• It allows for ex ante regulatory assessment while respecting varied empirical estimation practices.
• This unified approach enhances the coherence of valuing longevity gains in public policy.