How do we value a life in the age of COVID?

In recent months, COVID-19 has reminded us how interventions intended to influence the course of a disease, have an impact that goes beyond the individual’s health. In fact, Governments have grappled with the trade-offs to be made when making decisions on interventions that adversely impact the economy but have the potential to save lives and/or improve health. In this Webinar, we will be exploring how life is valued in Australia – for example when using a Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) to make decisions about funding of medicines, or when using the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) to make decisions about Government investments that impact health and safety more broadly. Lastly, the Webinar will conclude with a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of these different approaches and how, metrics such as the QALY, could be extended to measure the broader impact of health interventions.   

Speakers:

Dr Peter Abelson (Applied Economics P/L)

Peter has held a Chair in Economics at Macquarie University and has over 40 years of consulting experience in Australia and overseas, specialising in public economics and cost-benefit analysis. His research for the Office of Best Practice Regulation led to the initial OBPR (2008) recommended value of statistical life that is still the OBPR recommended value (with CPI increases). Peter publishes regularly in academic journals and runs regular executive training courses for public servants. His recent work in Australia includes reviews of major transport projects, evaluation of public health and education programs, planning for infrastructure, and analyses of housing prices.

Dr Tessa Peasgood (The University of Melbourne)

Tessa’s research interests lie predominantly in measuring and valuing health and wellbeing and the use of utility values within health technology appraisal. She applies both qualitative and quantitative techniques to the development and valuation of patient reported outcome measures.

David L. Grainger (Biointelect)

David leads the Global Health Outcomes and Policy practice at Sydney-based consultancy Biointelect. He has led or participated in projects for individual pharma companies, consortiums of companies, government and quasi-government organizations. David also engaged with governments and thought leaders in a range of markets on policy issues related to Universal Health Coverage, formulary management, HTA, pricing and regulatory affairs.

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