Policy goals for health and safety

Health management and safety regulation are separate disciplines but share the aim to extend expectancy of life in good health. The need to improve cost-effectiveness calls for their co-ordinated management according to a unified rationale. Three guiding principles of accountability, demonstrable net benefit and a uniform measure of performance, have been laid out in Canada by the Joint Committee on Health and Safety. They call for open accounting in terms of (health-related quality-adjusted) life expectancy. The principles are utilitarian in format but, it is argued, inequity is naturally diminished in the process of optimizing cost-effectiveness through maximum marginal returns. Comments are made on practical implementation. The need for public consent in practice calls for two additional principles reflecting fair procedure and sovereignty of the citizens. It is concluded that public health and safety measures should be surveyed, documented for cost-effectiveness and prioritized for improvement.