AUTHOR=Lipman Stefan A. 

TITLE=Expect Nothing: The (Lack of) Influence of Subjective Life Expectancy on Valuation of Child Health States

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Health Services

VOLUME=Volume 2 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/health-services/articles/10.3389/frhs.2022.803109

DOI=10.3389/frhs.2022.803109

ISSN=2813-0146

ABSTRACT=Objective: Earlier research has shown that individuals’ subjective life expectancy (SLE) affects health state valuation with time trade-off (TTO). Individuals that with longer expected life durations are less willing to trade-off life duration, which yields higher utilities. In this paper, the influence of SLE is explored in valuation of EQ-5D-Y-3L with a proxy perspective, i.e. adults’ valuation of health states considering the life of a 10-year old child. As SLE for children is likely higher, this might explain earlier findings suggesting that individuals are less willing to trade-off lifetime for children than for adults.

Methods: A total of 197 respondents were recruited to take part in digital TTO interviews, facilitated by trained interviewers. TTO interviews were implemented in accordance with the recommended protocol for valuation of EQ-5D-Y-3L. Respondents valued 10 EQ-5D-Y-3L health states for a 10-year old child, after which they were asked to report how old they themselves expected to become as well as how old they expected a 10-year old child to become.  

Results: Generally, adult respondents reported higher SLE for children than for themselves. Neither SLE was systematically associated with the willingness to trade lifetime or the amount of life years traded off in TTO tasks. This null-result was substantiated by regression analyses per health state.

Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that individuals’ expectations about longevity are not associated with EQ-5D-Y-3L valuation. This lack of association is in contrast to earlier work, and might be explained by the psychological distance introduced with proxy perspective valuation, or with methodological differences with earlier work.