Public Valuation of Lifesaving: The Controllability Issue

公众对拯救生命的评价：风险分析师经常使用成本效益分析来决定不同政策选择的相对价值。 在这些分析中，有一个假设，即挽救的生命与挽救的任何其他生命都是一样的。然而，研究表明，人们认为生命的价值受到其他定性因素的影响，例如人们所冒的风险以及这些风险是个人可控的还是自愿承担的。 本项目将探讨政策背景下可控性和非可控性如何影响人们对生命的评价，具体而言，将开发一种工具来衡量人们对生命评价的偏好。 与价值观或信仰一样，偏好也很难衡量，因为人们可能不确定或不愿意透露自己的偏好，因此无法回答调查问题。 以前的研究人员已经设计了各种技术来克服这些困难，并取得了不同的成功。 焦点小组、认知访谈和调查预测试将用于探索衡量偏好的不同方法，并制定一种方法，以产生人们对面临可控或不可控、自愿或非自愿风险的生命的评估的稳定和公正的结果。（1）安全气囊设计优先保护系安全带的驾驶员而不是未系安全带的驾驶员，（2）继发于酒精使用的肝损伤患者的肝移植而不是其他原因，（3）室内与室外空气污染源的监管优先权。 定义明确且引人注目的现实世界主题为开发适当的工具提供了最佳机会，因为它们对人们来说是熟悉和有趣的。 这项研究的最终产品将是一个调查工具，可以衡量风险承担的可控性和自愿性在多大程度上影响了人们对预防和减少风险政策挽救的生命的价值。 一旦收集，这种衡量可以直接纳入政策分析，为决定公众最希望采取哪些政策提供信息。 这可能使政策决定能够根据人们对风险预防和风险减少政策所挽救的生命的性质的偏好进行调整。

Public Valuation of Lifesaving: The Controllability IssueAbstractRisk analysts frequently use cost-effectiveness analysis to make decisions about the relative value of different policy options. Embedded in these analyses is the assumption that one life saved is equal to any other. Research has shown, however, that people think about the value of lives as affected by other qualitative factors, such as the risks people take and whether those risks are controllable by the individual or undertaken voluntarily. This project will explore how controllability and voluntariness influence peoples' valuation of lives in policy contexts.Specifically, an instrument will be developed to measure people's preferences for the valuation of lives. Like values or beliefs, preferences are challenging to measure because people can be unsure of or reluctant to reveal their preferences, and hence unable to answer survey questions. Previous researchers have devised a variety of techniques to overcome these difficulties, with varying success. Focus groups, cognitive interviews and survey pre-testing will be used to explore different methods for measuring preferences, and to develop an approach that produces stable and unbiased results of peoples' valuation of lives that are exposed to controllable or uncontrollable, and voluntary or involuntary risks.Three real-world, lifesaving scenarios will be used to elicit preferences: (1) airbag design to preferentially protect belted versus unbelted drivers, (2) liver transplant in persons with liver damage secondary to alcohol use versus other causes, (3) and regulatory priority for indoor versus outdoor sources of air pollution. Real-world topics that are well-defined and compelling offer the best opportunity to develop appropriate tools because they are familiar and interesting to people. The final product of this research will be a survey instrument that can measure how much the controllability and voluntary nature of risk-taking affects how people value lives saved by risk prevention and risk reduction policies. Once collected, this measurement could be directly incorporated into policy analyses that inform decisions about which policies are most desired by the public. This may allow policy decisions to be adjusted for people's preferences about the nature of lives that are saved by risk prevention and risk reduction policies.