# Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions and Health Improvements: A Life Expectancy Framework to Harmonize Policy Traditions

## TL;DR

This paper proposes a unified framework to value mortality risk reductions and health improvements using life expectancy and health preferences.

## Contribution

The novel approach integrates three valuation measures (VSL, VSLY, WTP–QALY) at the individual level using life expectancy and health preferences.

## Key findings

- A unified framework can generate conceptually linked valuation measures.
- The approach allows consistent decision-making across policy domains.
- It respects different empirical estimation practices across departments.

## Abstract

Many public policies directly affect an individual's mortality risk. The value of longevity gains has traditionally been monetized through three different concepts: value per statistical life (VSL), value per statistical life year (VSLY), and willingness‐to‐pay for a quality‐adjusted life year (WTP–QALY). By adopting gains in life expectancy as the unifying metric and combining it with preference‐based information on health and longevity, we set out an approach that would generate three measures that are conceptually linked at the individual level. In particular, explicitly integrating preferences over health impacts would allow for the WTP–QALY to be estimated alongside the VSL and VSLY. We argue that our approach has advantages over the direct and modeling methods developed in the literature to date. In addition, we clarify how using the proposed framework could deliver values allowing for consistent decision‐making across policy domains and government departments in ex ante regulatory assessment while simultaneously honoring the different empirical estimation practices across government departments.