Willingness to Pay for Reductions in Angina Pectoris Attacks

To compare the costs of health care programs with the benefits, the values of changes in health status must be expressed in monetary terms. The development of methods to estimate willingness to pay for changes in health status is therefore of interest. This paper reports the results of a contingent valuation study measuring willingness to pay for reductions in angina pectoris attacks. An innovative study design allowed analysis of the data on willingness to pay using two approaches, a binary question and a bid ding-game technique. Percentage reductions in anginal attacks were varied randomly in different subsamples, and data were collected about angina pectoris status, attack rate, and income to test the internal validity of the contingent valuation method. Will ingness to pay for a 50% reduction in the attack rate for three months was estimated to be about SEK 2,500 ($345) with the binary approach, and about SEK 2,100 ($290) using the bidding-game technique. Regression analyses showed that income, angina pectoris status, attack rate, and percentage reduction in attack rate were all related to willingness to pay, in agreement with the authors' hypothesis. Key words: willingness to pay; contingent valuation; angina pectoris; cost-benefit analysis. (Med Decis Mak ing 1996;16:248-253)