Read the latest “Risk in Perspective” from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. Using a simple example, this issue clarifies several concepts related to estimating and valuing changes in mortality risk. Mortality risk associated is often described by the number of “premature deaths” and the economic value of reducing the hazard as equal to the number of “lives saved” multiplied by the “value per statistical life.” These descriptions are misleading. The number of deaths caused by many environmental hazards is unknowable from epidemiological information and the economic value is the sum of many individuals’ willingness to pay for small reductions in age-specific mortality risk.
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