TY - JOUR
T1 - Value of statistical life year in extreme poverty
T2 - a randomized experiment of measurement methods in rural Burkina Faso
AU - Trautmann, Stefan T.
AU - Xu, Yilong
AU - König-Kersting, Christian
AU - Patenaude, Bryan N.
AU - Harling, Guy
AU - Sié, Ali
AU - Bärnighausen, Till
N1 - Funding Information:
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Till Bärnighausen was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through the Alexander von Humboldt Professor award, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research; the German Research Foundation; the Wellcome Trust; and from NICHD of NIH (R01-HD084233), NIA of NIH (P01-AG041710), NIAID of NIH (R01-AI124389 and R01-AI112339) as well as FIC of NIH (D43-TW009775). Guy Harling is supported by a fellowship from the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust [210479/Z/18/Z]. The funding bodies had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, or in writing the manuscript. Christian König-Kersting was supported by grant F6309 of the Austrian Science Fund FWF.This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome Trust [Grant Number 210479/Z/18/Z]. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Background: Value of a Statistical Life Year (VSLY) provides an important economic measure of an individual’s trade-off between health risks and other consumption, and is a widely used policy parameter. Measuring VSLY is complex though, especially in low-income and low-literacy communities. Methods: Using a large randomized experiment (N = 3027), we study methodological aspects of stated-preference elicitation with payment cards (price lists) in an extreme poverty context. In a 2 × 2 design, we systematically vary whether buying or selling prices are measured, crossed with the range of the payment card. Results: We find substantial effects of both the pricing method and the list range on elicited VSLY. Estimates of the gross domestic product per capita multiplier for VSLY range from 3.5 to 33.5 depending on the study design. Importantly, all estimates are economically and statistically significantly larger than the current World Health Organization threshold of 3.0 for cost-effectiveness analyses. Conclusions: Our results inform design choice in VSLY measurements, and provide insight into the potential variability of these measurements and possibly robustness checks.
AB - Background: Value of a Statistical Life Year (VSLY) provides an important economic measure of an individual’s trade-off between health risks and other consumption, and is a widely used policy parameter. Measuring VSLY is complex though, especially in low-income and low-literacy communities. Methods: Using a large randomized experiment (N = 3027), we study methodological aspects of stated-preference elicitation with payment cards (price lists) in an extreme poverty context. In a 2 × 2 design, we systematically vary whether buying or selling prices are measured, crossed with the range of the payment card. Results: We find substantial effects of both the pricing method and the list range on elicited VSLY. Estimates of the gross domestic product per capita multiplier for VSLY range from 3.5 to 33.5 depending on the study design. Importantly, all estimates are economically and statistically significantly larger than the current World Health Organization threshold of 3.0 for cost-effectiveness analyses. Conclusions: Our results inform design choice in VSLY measurements, and provide insight into the potential variability of these measurements and possibly robustness checks.
KW - Burkina Faso
KW - Cost-effectiveness
KW - Extreme poverty
KW - Health risks
KW - Payment cards
KW - Price lists
KW - Value of statistical life year
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U2 - 10.1186/s12963-021-00275-y
DO - 10.1186/s12963-021-00275-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 34789286
AN - SCOPUS:85119133437
SN - 1478-7954
VL - 19
JO - Population Health Metrics
JF - Population Health Metrics
IS - 1
M1 - 45
ER -