Severity as a priority setting criterion in health care
Often, in healthcare, whoever is more severely affected is helped first. But the lack of a clear definition or rationale behind the use of 'severity' as a prioritiy-setting criterion raises ethical concerns.
Time and funding
- Funder: Swedish Research Council
- Type of funding: Projektbidrag
Healthcare priorities and severity
For any health care system, priority setting is unavoidable. One priority setting criterion that has broad public support is that of prioritising the worse off or, put differently, prioritizing patients based on severity of illness. However, despite its prominent role in decision making, severity is an undertheorized and contested concept, with an unclear normative rationale.
The aim of this project is to work out a normatively robust conceptualization of severity as a priority setting criterion in health care. This includes:
- Exploring the issue regarding to what extent premature death adds to severity
- Exploring if severity should be seen as something that allows interpersonal aggregation
- Exploring what dimensions should be taken into consideration when assessing severity (the “currency” of severity)
- Investigating how relevant health care personnel perceive the most promising theoretical notions of severity brought forward in the project
The primary method used in this project will be normative analysis, combined with empirical methods (qualitative interviews).
Funding
This PhD project is part of the Just Severity project that has received funding by the Swedish Research Council with Niklas Juth as the principal investigator.
Collaborators
Lunds Universitet, Uppsala Universitet
People in the project
Adam Ehlert
Doctoral student investigating severity as a criterion for priorities in healthcare, whether early death contributes to severity and whether severity should be understood in subjective or objective terms.
Niklas Juth
Professor of medical ethics and research leader at CRB. Focus on the ethical issues that arise at the intersection of political philosophy and medical ethics. Chair of the ethics council of Region Uppsala.
