Personal needs versus national needs: public attitudes regarding health care priorities at the personal and national levels

Israel Journal of Health Policy Research

Orna Baron-Epel²  Giora Kaplan¹ 

[1] The Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer 52621, Israel;School of Public Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

关键词: Public opinion;    National survey;    Health insurance;    National health insurance;    Health priorities;    Health policy;   

Others  :  1210481
DOI  :  10.1186/s13584-015-0010-2

 received in 2014-08-10, accepted in 2015-02-26,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Many stakeholders have little or no confidence in the ability of the public to express their opinions on health policy issues. The claim often arises that lay people prioritize according to their own personal experiences and may lack the broad perspective necessary to understand the needs of the population at large. In order to test this claim empirically, this study compares the public’s priorities regarding personal insurance to their priorities regarding allocation of national health resources. Thus, the study should shed light on the extent to which the public’s priorities at the national level are a reflection of their priorities at the personal level.

Methods

A telephone survey was conducted with a representative sample of the Israeli adult population aged 18 and over (n = 1,225). The public’s priorities were assessed by asking interviewees to assume that they were the Minister of Health and from this point of view allocate an additional budget among various health areas. Their priorities at the personal level were assessed by asking interviewees to choose preferred items for inclusion in their personal supplementary health insurance.

Results

Over half of the respondents (54%) expressed different personal and national priorities. In multivariable logistic analysis, “population group” was the only variable found to be statistically significant; Jews were 1.8 times more likely than Arabs to give a similar response to both questions. Income level was of borderline significance.

Conclusions

At least half of the population was able to differentiate between their personal needs and national policy needs. We do not advocate a decision-making process based on polls or referendums. However, we believe that people should be allowed to express their priorities regarding national policy issues, and that decision-makers should consider these as one of the factors used to determine policy decisions.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Kaplan and Baron-Epel; licensee BioMed Central.

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