Linked Life Data

1419202

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/1419202

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
3
pubmed:dateCreated
1992-12-17
pubmed:abstractText
Economic appraisal is increasingly being used to inform health care decision-making. To allow comparison, costs and benefits spread over time are weighted according to when they are experienced. The further in the future, the less heavily they are weighted or the more they are discounted. Traditional economic appraisal techniques are based on the view that social decisions should reflect private preferences. The practice of discounting future streams of costs and benefits is principally justified by the fact that individuals have a positive time preference, preferring consumption sooner rather than later. Discounting weights public decision-making in favour of interventions resulting in short-term benefits and against longer-term benefits. This discriminates against preventive and other public health programmes. This paper provides a critique of the foundations of discounting. It is argued that health policy should have a longer time horizon, reflecting social values rather than individual preferences. Factors which make discounting the future rational from the individual's point of view are shown to be irrelevant to a societal perspective. Although uncertainty about the effectiveness of interventions and technological change are good reasons for weighting some future benefits less highly, the routine use of a single discount rate for economic evaluations of health programmes is not justified.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Sep
pubmed:issn
0957-4832
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:volume
14
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
250-6
pubmed:dateRevised
2004-11-17
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
1992
pubmed:articleTitle
Discounting in health care decision-making: time for a change?
pubmed:affiliation
Academic Unit of Public Medicine, University of Leeds.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article