The benefits of avoiding cancer (or dying from cancer): Evidence from a four- country study

Abstract

Abstract. We use stated-preference methods to estimate the cancer Value per Statistical Life (VSL) and Value per Statistical Case (VSCC) from a representative sample of 45-60-year olds in four countries in Europe. We ask respondents to report information about their willingness to pay for health risk reductions that are different from those used in earlier valuation work because they are comprised of two probabilities-that of getting cancer, and that of dying from it (conditional on getting it in the first place). The product of these two probabilities is the unconditional cancer mortality risk. Our hypothetical risk reductions also include two qualitative attributes-quality-of-life impacts and pain. The results show that respondents did appear to have an intuitive grasp of compound probabilities, and took into account each component of the unconditional cancer mortality risk when answering the valuation questions. We estimate the cancer VSL to be between € 1.9 and 5.7 million, depending on whether the (unconditional) mortality risk was reduced by lowering the chance of getting cancer, increasing the chance of surviving cancer, or both. The VSCC is estimated to be up to € 0.550 million euro, and its magnitude depends on the initial (conditional) cancer mortality and on the improvement in survival. We interpret these as "pure" mortality and cancer risk values, stripped of morbidity, pain or quality-of-life effects. The survey responses show that impacts on daily activities and pain have little or no effect on the WTP to reduce the adverse health risks.

Risk Perception, Learning and Willingness to Pay to Reduce Heart Disease Risks

“…Parents assessed risk of contracting coronary artery disease before age 75 years using an interactive grid (Gerking et al 2017). 6 Computerized, self-administered surveys are well suited to eliciting subjective probabilities (Manski 2004), and grids have been used successfully to provide or elicit probabilities in previous studies (Dickie and Gerking 2007, Viscusi and Huber 2012, Alberini and Ščasný 2018, Hammitt and Herrera-Araujo 2018. The grid depicted 100 numbered squares to measure risk as a number of chances in 100.…”

A Unified Probabilistic Framework for Cancer Risk Management

“…Two parameters in Equations (7–8) have not yet been introduced; denotes the social discount rate and denotes the sum of the age‐specific VSLY and the medical expenditure on lung cancer treatment. I calibrate the VSLY based on a recent study by Alberini and Ščasný (2018) that surveyed respondents in four EU countries and obtained a value per statistical life (VSL) estimate of €2.2m (in 2014 €). Knowing the age of an individual, the VSL can be converted into a value per statistical life‐year (VSLY) by dividing it through the expected remaining life expectancy of an individual of age (Hammitt, 2007).…”

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

“…The individual faces a situation where she (he) could end up in one out of three different states: (i) remain in current (good) health (H G ) with probability (1 -q), where q is the risk of getting ill, (ii) develop the disease (H B ) and survive with reduced health (h < 1) with probability q(1 -p), where p is the probability of dying conditional on getting the disease and h is the health deterioration with the disease, or (iii) develop the disease and die (H D ) with probability qp (Rheinberger, Herrera-Araujo, & Hammitt, 2016). The expected utility (E(U)) in this situation is a function of the utility (U) of wealth (W) in these three different health outcomes (Alberini & Scasny, 2018;Rheinberger et al, 2016):…”

“…Differentiating the equation while holding expected utility constant gives the MRS between wealth and risk reduction, which is equal to the value of a statistical case (VSC) (Alberini & Scasny, 2018):…”

“…where m is the unconditional probability of dying, that is, the product of q and p. The VSL is by definition the individual WTP for a small change in m within a defined time period. As m is the product of q and p, it can be shown that the MRS between wealth and a reduction in m-that is, the VSL-is given by (Alberini & Scasny, 2018):…”