Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Preference for equity as a framing effect.
In previous studies, the authors found that most people, given a fixed budget, would rather offer a less effective screening test to 100% of a Medicaid population than a more effective test to 50% of the population. In a subsequent study, the authors found that the number of people preferring the less effective screening test was dramatically reduced when the percentage of Medicaid enrollees receiving it was less than 100. In this article, 2 new studies are reported that explore whether people's preferences for equity versus efficiency are susceptible to a framing effect. ⋯ Policy planners should be careful about accepting public preferences for equity over efficiency at face value, because such preferences can be dramatically influenced by framing effects and order effects.