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This is what authorities like the FHM (the public health authority does every day). You use tools like counting QALY, for example.



But how do you equate or make commensurable those different measures? How many job losses equal a lost life year?


That’s the difficult part, but that’s the job of the public health authority. Same thing with missed semesters of a school. How many add up to an 80 year old dying? And so on and so forth. I don’t envy those that have to do this arithmetic, but it can’t be avoided.


I don't see how it is arithmetic nor the job of a public health authority. It's a philosophical, ethical and political issue.

There are bounding conditions, like research showing that job loss increases rates of suicide. [1]

But we still argue about whether it is fair to treat the life of a 12 year old as more valuable than the life of a 92 year old. So it isn't just arithmetic.

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0...




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