Injury cost-analysis and ethics: At what costs?

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Abstract
Studies into the ‘cost of illnesses’ or the ’burden of diseases’ are expanding in number and certainly also in quality and utility for policy makers. There are clear reasons for this growth in cost analyses, since investments in public programs are constrained by fiscal and financial policies. Decision makers are committed to knowing whether an investment will produce the desired results at costs that are less than the gains and less than those of alternative measures. This paper focuses on the principal issues with respect to the utilization of cost analyses and seeks to provide guidance for more balanced decision making, taking into account public values as well. The focus on social costs and benefits originates from traditional utilitarianism. This principle assumes that all the benefits and costs can be measured on a common numerical scale and then added and subtracted from each other. However, the utilitarian principle has clear limitations. Different people attribute different values to risks and to...

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