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Discount health impacts

Source: R/discount.R
discount.Rd

This function calculates discounted health impacts (without valuation).

Usage

discount(
  output_attribute = NULL,
  impact = NULL,
  discount_rate = NULL,
  n_years = 1,
  discount_shape = NULL,
  inflation_rate = NULL
)

Arguments

output_attribute

List produced by healthiar::attribute() or healthiar::compare() as results.

impact

Numberic value referring to the health impacts to be monetized (without attribute function). If a Numberic vector is entered multiple assessments (by year) will be carried out. Be aware that the value for year 0 (current) must be entered, while n_years does not include the year 0. Thus, length of impact = n_years + 1.

discount_rate

Numeric value showing the discount rate for future years. If it is a nominal discount rate, no inflation is to be entered. If it is a real discount rate, the result can be adjusted by entering inflation in this function.

n_years

Numeric value referring to number of years in the future to be considered in the discounting and/or inflation. Be aware that the year 0 (without discounting/inflation, i.e. the present) is not be counted here. If a vector is entered in the argument impact, n_years does not need to be entered (length of impact = n_years + 1).

discount_shape

String referring to the assumed equation for the discount factor. By default: "exponential". Otherwise: "hyperbolic_harvey_1986" or "hyperbolic_mazur_1987".

inflation_rate

Numeric value between 0 and 1 referring to the annual inflation (increase of prices). Only to be entered if nominal (not real) discount rate is entered in the function. Default value = NULL (assuming no nominal discount rate).

Value

This function returns a list containing:

1) monetization_main (tibble) containing the main monetized results;

  • monetized_impact (numeric column)

  • discount_factor (numeric column) calculated based on the entered discount_rate

  • And many more

2) monetization_detailed (list) containing detailed (and interim) results.

  • results_by_year (tibble)

  • health_raw (tibble) containing the monetized results for each for each combination of input uncertainty that were provided to the initial attribute_health() call

If the argument output_attribute was specified, then the two results elements are added to the existing output.

Author

Alberto Castro & Axel Luyten

Examples

# Goal: discount attributable health impacts
results <- discount(
  impact = 20000,
  discount_shape = "exponential",
  discount_rate = 0.03,
  n_years = 20
)
results$monetization_main$monetized_impact
#> [1] 11073.52