To Örebro University

Introduction: The COVID pandemic proves that a sustainable healthcare system is dependent both on resources and a consensus about which values should guide the decision makers to appropriately set priorities for resource allocation. There is not clear how exactly the decision makers choose the priorities for spending, but there were differences between and within countries. For example, in Sweden, where healthcare system has a pronounced public characterand a declared emphasis on equity and solidarity, there was a high variation between and within regions with respect to how resources were used for treatment, prevention, and vaccination. This article is an explorative analysis of the respondents’ wellbeing and their preferences regarding priority-setting in healthcare in Sweden during December 2021, when the extremely high infection risk of the Omicron sparked significant concern among global experts andpoliticians.

Methods: Our web-survey was answered by 1000 respondents from the web panel Userneeds. The sample is representative with respect age, gender, and geographical region for the adult population of Sweden. The respondents are invited to imagine that they are decision-makers in the health care system and decide for six hypothetical choice situations, where the resources are allocated to save the life of patients at risk of dying due to suicide, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and acute heart attack. In addition to the choices, the survey also includes questions about the individual’s demographic and socio-economic characteristics, their well-being, their risk for and experience (their own and/or someone near them) with suicide, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and acute heart attack.

Results: Our preliminary results show that regardless of their age, people with a high value of life-satisfaction and with no experience related to suicide, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer and acute heart attack tend to allocate resources for relatively young patients suffering do to suicide and breast cancer.