School of Business, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden.
Swedish Institute for Health Economics, Lund, Sweden.
Eur J Health Econ. 2022 Mar;23(2):261-275. doi: 10.1007/s10198-021-01361-6. Epub 2021 Aug 21.
This paper compares the value per statistical life (VSL) in the context of suicide prevention to that of prevention of traffic fatalities. We conducted a contingent valuation survey with questions on willingness to pay (WTP) in both contexts by administering a web questionnaire to 1038 individuals aged 18 to 80. We conjectured that WTP for a given impact on the number of fatalities would be lower for suicide prevention because suicide, at least to some degree, is the result of individuals' own decisions. However, this hypothesis was not supported by the within- or between-sample estimates of WTP or by responses to direct questions. Hence, no support is provided for the use of a lower valuation of the impact of suicide prevention than for risk-reducing programs in other fields, such as traffic safety. This implies that the same VSL should be used for evaluating suicide prevention interventions and for risk-reducing programs in other policy areas and funds for the prevention of fatalities should be directed to the area with the lowest cost per life saved.
本文比较了预防自杀和预防交通死亡这两种情况下的每统计生命价值（VSL）。我们通过向 1038 名 18 至 80 岁的个人进行网络问卷调查，在这两种情况下进行了关于支付意愿（WTP）的条件价值评估调查。我们推测，由于自杀在某种程度上是个人自己的决定的结果，因此，对于给定的致命人数的影响，自杀预防的 WTP 会更低。然而，这一假设并未得到 WTP 的样本内或样本间估计数或对直接问题的回答的支持。因此，没有理由支持使用低于预防自杀的影响的估值，而采用其他领域的风险降低计划，如交通安全。这意味着，在评估自杀预防干预措施和其他政策领域的风险降低计划时，应使用相同的 VSL，并且预防致命事故的资金应投向挽救生命的成本最低的领域。
