Models of Disease Costs and Their Use in Medical Research Resource Allocations,
Abstract
The report takes the position that most research should be judged by its probable effects on American health. As a tool in evaluating these effects, two models are presented. Each model gives a method of combining data on medical costs, death, disability, and suffering to obtain the costs to society of unsolved medical problems. The first is the widely used 'human capital' model, which treats health and life as an investment and measures the costs of a disease in terms of its medical costs and the work days lost to illness and death. The second is a 'willingness-to-pay' model, which has been often proposed but never used. It treats health as a consumption good and measures the costs of a disease by how much people would be willing to pay to avoid it. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1970
- Accession Number
- AD0731256
Entities
People
- Emmett Keeler
Organizations
- RAND Corporation