For Me or for My Relatives? Approximating Self-Protection and Local Altruistic Motivations Underlying Preferences for Public Health Policies Using Risk Perception Metrics

Jan 1, 2023, 00:00
10.1016/j.jval.2022.05.017
https://www.valueinhealthjournal.com/article/S1098-3015(22)02034-4/fulltext
Title : For Me or for My Relatives? Approximating Self-Protection and Local Altruistic Motivations Underlying Preferences for Public Health Policies Using Risk Perception Metrics
Citation : https://www.valueinhealthjournal.com/action/showCitFormats?pii=S1098-3015(22)02034-4&doi=10.1016/j.jval.2022.05.017
First page : 99
Section Title : METHODOLOGY
Open access? : Yes
Section Order : 99

Objectives

Research efforts evaluating the role of altruistic motivations behind health policy support are usually based on direct preference elicitation procedures, which may be biased. We propose an indirect measurement approach to approximate self-protection–related and altruistic motivations underlying preferences for public health policies.

Methods

Our new approach relies on associations between on the one hand decision makers’ perceived health risk for themselves and for close relatives and on the other hand their observed preferences for health policies that reduce such risks. The approach allows to make a rough distinction between health-related self-protection and local altruistic motives behind preferences for health policies. We illustrate our approach using data obtained from a discrete choice experiment in the context of policies to relax coronavirus-related lockdown measures in The Netherlands.

Results

Our results show that the approach is able to uncover that (1) people who think they have a high chance of experiencing health risks from a COVID-19 infection are more willing to accept a societal or personal sacrifice, (2) people with a higher health risk perception for their relatives have a higher willingness to accept sacrifices than people with a higher health risk perception for themselves, and (3) people who perceive that they have a high risk of dying of COVID-19 have a higher willingness to accept sacrifices than those anticipating less severe consequences of COVID-19.

Conclusions

Our method offers a useful proxy metric to distinguish health-related self-protection and local altruism as drivers of citizens’ responses to healthcare policies.

Categories :
  • Decision & Deliberative Processes
  • Epidemiology & Public Health
  • Health Policy & Regulatory
  • Health Technology Assessment
  • Public Health
  • Risk-sharing Approaches
  • Study Approaches
  • Surveys & Expert Panels
Tags :
  • discrete choice
  • health policy
  • local altruism
  • risk perception
  • self-protection
Regions :
  • Western Europe
ViH Article Tags :