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To Count or Not to Count Deaths: Reranking Effects in Health Distribution Evaluation
Author(s) -
Arrighi Yves,
AbuZaineh Mohammad,
Ventelou Bruno
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/hec.3010
Subject(s) - count data , medicine , statistics , econometrics , emergency medicine , economics , mathematics , poisson distribution
Populations' structures and sizes can be a result of healthcare policy decisions. We use a two‐period theoretical framework and a dynamic microsimulation model to examine the consequences of this assertion on the appraisal of alternative health policy options. Results show that standard welfare‐in‐health measures are sensitive to changes in populations' sizes, in that taking into account the (virtual) existence of the dead can alter the ranking of policy options. Disregarding differences in the survivals induced by alternative policies can bias programmes' ranking in favour of less live‐saving policies. The paper alerts on the risk of policy misranking by the use of ex‐post cross‐sectional analyses, neglecting deaths occurring in the past as well as counterfactual deaths in alternative policy scenarios. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.