Capturing preferences for inequality aversion in decision support

We investigate the situation where there is interest in ranking distributions (of income, of wealth, of health, of service levels) across a population, in which individuals are considered preferentially indistinguishable and where there is some limited information about social preferences. We use a natural dominance relation, generalized Lorenz dominance, used in welfare comparisons in economic theory. In some settings there may be additional information about preferences (for example, if there is policy statement that one distribution is preferred to another) and any dominance relation should respect such preferences. However, characterising this sort of conditional dominance relation (specifically, dominance with respect to the set of all symmetric increasing quasiconcave functions in line with given preference information) turns out to be computationally challenging. This challenge comes about because, through the assumption of symmetry, any one preference statement (“I prefer giving $100 to Jane and$110 to John over giving $150 to Jane and$90 to John”) implies a large number of other preference statements (“I prefer giving $110 to Jane and$100 to John over giving $150 to Jane and$90 to John”; “I prefer giving $100 to Jane and$110 to John over giving $90 to Jane and$150 to John”). We present theoretical results that help deal with these challenges and present tractable linear programming formulations for testing whether dominance holds between any given pair of distributions. We also propose an interactive decision support procedure for ranking a given set of distributions and demonstrate its performance through computational testing

CUT: a multicriteria approach for concavifiable preferences

We consider the problem of helping a decision maker (DM) choose from a set of multiattributed objects when her preferences are "concavifiable," i.e. representable by a concave value function. We establish conditions under which preferences or preference intensities are concavifiable. We also derive a characterization for the family of concave value functions compatible with a set of such preference statements expressed by the DM. This can be used to validate dominance relations over discrete sets of alternatives and forms the basis of an interactive procedure. We report on the practical use of this procedure with several DMs for a flat-choice problem and its computational performance on a set of project-portfolio selection problem instances. The use of preference intensities is found to provide significant improvements to the performance of the procedure

Factors influencing on the determinants of people joining cooperative based health Scheme.

<p>Factors influencing on the determinants of people joining cooperative based health Scheme.</p

Characteristics of Co-BHS members and non-member households.

<p>Characteristics of Co-BHS members and non-member households.</p

Determinants of enrollment of informal sector workers in cooperative based health scheme in Bangladesh

<div><p>Background</p><p>Providing access to affordable health care for the informal sector remains a considerable challenge for low income countries striving to make progress towards universal health coverage. The objective of the study is to identify the factors shaping the decision to enroll in a cooperative based health scheme for informal workers in Bangladesh and also help to identify the features of informal workers without health schemes and their likelihood of being insured.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Data were derived from a cross-sectional in-house survey within the catchment area of a cooperative based health scheme in Bangladesh during April–June 2014, covering a total of 784 households (458 members and 326 non-members). Multivariate logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with cooperative based health scheme and explanatory variables.</p><p>Findings</p><p>This study found that a number of factors were significant determinants of health scheme participation including sex of household head, household composition, occupational category as well as involvement social financial safety net programs.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>Findings from this study can be suggestive for policy-makers interested in scaling up health insurance for informal workers in Bangladesh. Shared funding from this large informal sector can generate new resources for healthcare, which is in line with the healthcare financing strategy of Bangladesh as well as the recommendation of the World Health Organization for developing social health insurance as part of the path to Universal Health Coverage.</p></div

Additional file 3 of Inequalities and mental health during the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK: a mixed-methods exploration

Additional file 3

Additional file 1 of Inequalities and mental health during the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK: a mixed-methods exploration

Additional file 1

Additional file 2 of Inequalities and mental health during the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK: a mixed-methods exploration

Additional file 2