Eliciting the level of health inequality aversion in England

Policy makers faced with equality-efficiency trade-offs can articulate the nature and extent of their health inequality aversion using social welfare functions. In this study we use data from an online survey of the general public in England (n=246) to elicit health inequality aversion parameters by numerically solving Atkinson and Kolm social welfare functions. We elicit median inequality aversion parameters of 10.95 for Atkinson and 0.15 for Kolm. These values suggest substantial concern for health inequality among the English general public which, at current levels of quality adjusted life expectancy, implies weighting health gains to the poorest fifth of people in society six to seven times as highly as health gains to the richest fifth.