Publication Details
Abstract
This paper is an empirical review of contingency valuation of willingness to pay for health care quality improvements. The paper has highlighted a number of issues in relation to the use of contingent valuation method (CVM) to provide monetary values for changes in goods like the health care quality improvement. Empirical literature reviewed showed lack of empirical literature on contingency valuation on health care quality improvement particularly in Nigeria. The analysis suggests that CVM can be seen as a useful tool to monetarise environmental impacts associated with health. It is important to stress that CVM should only be used in relation to health impacts which are well-perceived by participants in such surveys. Therefore, the main role of CVM is to provide monetary values for local health impacts. CVM entails a number of advantages with respect to monetarisation of health impacts which indicate that valuation can reflect use as well as non-use values; CVM focuses on ex-ante valuation; direct estimation of willingness to pay; experimental approach allows for valuation of a variety of different environmental goods. However, the method also involves a number of problems: -Large difference between willingness to pay and willingness to avoid measures; controlling the validity and reliability of estimates; strategic behaviour in responses; hypothetical nature of survey and survey design related issues.