Dread and latency impacts on a VSL for cancer risk reductions

Abstract

We propose a structural relationship between the value of preventing a statistical cancer fatality and the value of statistical life (VSL) for risks of an instantaneous road accident fatality. This relationship incorporates a context effect reflecting both the illness or 'morbidity' associated with cancer fatality and the 'dread' or horror associated with the prospect of eventual death from cancer, as well as a latency effect that captures the discounting likely to arise because the onset of the symptoms of cancer typically occurs after some delay. We use a Risk-Risk trade-off study to validate this model by directly estimating the influence of context and latency effects upon the relative size of the VSL for cancer and for road accidents, confirming that both effects are significant and estimating their size using regression analysis. We show that morbidity accounts for the majority of the context premium. We use the elicited coefficients to reconstruct VSL estimates for a range of cancers characterised by their latency and morbidity periods.

Does the Public Prefer Health Gain for Cancer Patients? A Systematic Review of Public Views on Cancer and its Characteristics

“…Scenarios typically included reduction or avoidance of environmental pollution [17, 28, 29, 31–33, 38] and comparisons with road traffic accidents [29, 34–37]. These studies are part of a body of risk literature estimating the VSL premium for cancer, reviewed by Tekesin and Ara [36], which finds cancer premiums ranging from 0 to 200%.…”

Improving the risk–risk trade-off method for use in safety project appraisal responses

“…Methods to elicit this include variations of the multiple list formats (in which different combinations of risks are presented to the subjects in a list) or the dichotomous choice format (where the different combinations of risk are presented sequentially (randomly or in a decreasing/increasing manner). In this study, we will apply the multiple list format (Chilton et al 2006;McDonald et al 2016). It is based on more generic multiple list methods used in a number of domains [for example, in the form of a payment card in a CV survey (Bateman et al 2002)].…”

“…Given that increase, the firm would want to know if they would still move to the chosen area or would prefer now to go to the other area. Following Chilton et al (2006) and McDonald et al (2016), risk increases were utilised instead of risk decreases because of the relatively low baseline risk for a fatality, leaving little if any scope for decreasing the risk. 6 To make their choice, each respondent received a table customised to the choice they just made.…”

Dread and Risk Elimination Premium for the Value of a Statistical Life

“…Although McDonald et al. () found that the premium is primarily driven by the duration of morbidity, van Houtven et al. () found no significant impact of the morbidity period.…”

“…Previous research suggests that there is no support for a cancer premium due to the word cancer (Hammitt & Haninger, ; Hammitt & Liu, ), and inconclusive evidence for the existence of a cancer premium in relation to contexts that differ with respect to morbidity (Adamowicz, Dupont, Krupnick, & Zhang, ; Alberini & Scasny, ; Hammitt & Haninger, ; Magat, Viscusi, & Huber, ; McDonald et al., ; Van Houtven, Sullivan, & Dockins, ; Viscusi, Huber, & Bell, ). Although Hammitt and Haninger () do not show any support for a cancer premium in relation to road traffic accidents, Alberini and Scasny () found a significant difference in the VSL of the two different contexts.…”