Do the UK-public think the government should prioritise the health of poorer people over the health of richer people? A choice-experiment

ABSTRACT: In the United Kingdom, policy-makers want to improve average population health. They also want to reduce inequalities in health between social groups. We conducted a face-to-face choice-experiment to explore how the UK-public think government should act when these two aims conflict; and, to explore how “inequality-aversion” may differ depending upon the groups between which a health inequality exists and type of health an intervention provides. Eighty people participated in Sheffield and Hull in May/June 2019. Each completed three Person-Trade-Off exercises: sets of choices between interventions that would improve population health and reduce health inequalities, or improve population health by a larger amount but increase health inequalities. The seminar will present the design and results of this study and outline their implications for: (1) economists interested in including consideration of inequalities in health in distributionally-sensitive forms of economic evaluation; and (2) policy-makers interested in capturing the views of the public in decision-making.