title: Increasing marginal utility of small increases in life-expectancy? Results from a population survey.
abstract: The standard practice in cost-effectiveness analyses of health care is to assign a linear value to increasing lifetime gains. The aim of the current study was to examine the possible existence of non-linear utility for short life extensions. A representative sample of the Norwegian population, aged 40-59 years (n=2402), was asked to imagine that they had a limited remaining lifetime (1 year or 10 years) and were offered a treatment that would increase lifetime by a specified amount of time from 1 week to 1 year. In all scenarios, the price per week of life extension was held constant. The proportion of respondents that accepted the treatment increased with increasing extensions, indicating a convex utility function. The result suggests increasing marginal utility for life extensions up to 1 year.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Health Management and Health Economics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. m.k.kvamme@medisin.uio.no
authors.forename: Maria Knoph
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Kvamme
authors.forename: Dorte
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gyrd-Hansen
authors.forename: Jan Abel
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Olsen
authors.forename: Ivar Sønbø
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Kristiansen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis / Q000379:methods; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D009664:Norway; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D057240:Patient Preference; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires