A Publicly Informed Objective Theory of Illness Severity
Abstract
When allocating scarce medical resources, we strive to do the best we can with the available resources. However, while we aspire to provide as “much health” as possible, we also care about who the beneficiaries are. Severity criteria are operative in Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands, and the UK. These criteria, while differing in interesting ways, all dictate that we should be willing to accept a higher cost of helping those who are severely ill. But what does it mean to be severely ill? Severity is a thick and heterogeneous concept. It is, at least partly, a measure of health-related worse off-ness. Severity also seems to have a prescriptive aspect: we believe that we should do something when an illness is severe. The dissertation builds on and extends arguments from the four included papers, making the case for a fully aggregative objective theory of illness severity informed by popular views. In such a theory, some features of illness are subject-independent, while others are subject dependent.List of papers
Paper 1: Jølstad, B., & Juth, N. (2022). Age and Illness Severity: A Case of Irrelevant Utilities?. Utilitas, 1-16. DOI: 10.1017/S0953820822000024. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820822000024 |
Paper 2: Jølstad, B. (2023). Adaptation and illness severity: the significance of suffering. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 1-11. DOI: 10.1007/s11019-023-10155-x. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-023-10155-x |
Paper 3: Jølstad, B., Solberg, C. T., Juth, N. & Barra, M. (under review in Erkenntniss). When Should Popular Views be Included in a Reflective Equilibrium? To be published. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |
Paper 4: Jølstad, B., Stenmarck, M. S., & Barra, M. (submitted to Social Science and Medicine). Preparing Popular Views for Inclusion in a Reflective Equilibrium: A Case Study on Illness Severity. To be published. The paper is not available in DUO awaiting publishing. |