Public health economics and upstream income-based policies: from cost to value

Upstream income-based policies are widely accepted by researchers as key levers to address health inequalities. However, scarce public resources mean difficult decisions about policy implementation must be clearly justified. A public mandate, through knowledge of public preferences, offers one route to transformative policy change. But we do not know what, if anything, people would be willing to give-up to reduce health inequalities. Nor whether the type of policy through which health inequalities are reduced matters. We make the case for developing a new public health economics research agenda using stated preference techniques to estimate the economic value for upstream income-based policies and health outcomes by considering Universal Basic Income. This new research area has the potential to advance the use of economic valuation methods within public health economics, generating new evidence to inform policy debates around the implementation of upstream income-based policies and how to address health inequalities.