UNASSIGNED: This study quantified the public value (PV) of the criteria and sub-criteria in the current drug reimbursement systems in South Korea and examined sociodemographic factors that associated with PV.
UNASSIGNED: The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to quantify the PVs of criteria and sub-criteria. We developed a questionnaire to generate pairwise comparison matrices among criteria and sub-criteria. From 27 March to 1 April 2023, we recruited 1,000 study participants using a quota sampling method stratified by age, sex, and region based on Korean census data.
UNASSIGNED: The PVs for the criteria were highest for clinical usefulness (28.5%), followed by cost-effectiveness (27.1%), budget impact (24.3%), and reimbursement in other countries (20.1%). The sociodemographic characteristics of the participants had a significant impact on the PVs of the criteria. Willingness to pay additional premiums for national health insurance was negatively associated with PV for clinical usefulness and cost-effectiveness and positively associated with PV for reimbursement in other countries.
UNASSIGNED: The public prioritized clinical usefulness and cost-effectiveness as the main criteria. However, the PVs of the criteria were divergent and associated with sociodemographic factors. Divergent public interests require an evidence-informed deliberative process for reimbursement decisions.

The inherent normativity of HTA can be conceptualized as a result of normative commitments, a concept that we further specify to encompass moral, epistemological and ontological commitments at play in the practice of HTA. Based on examples from literature, and an analysis of the example of assessing Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT), we will show that inevitable normative decisions in conducting an assessment commits the HTA practitioner to moral (regarding what makes a health technology desirable), ontological (regarding which effects of health technology are conceivable), and epistemological (regarding how to obtain reliable information about health technology) norms. This highlights and supports the need for integrating normative analysis and stakeholder participation, providing guidance to HTA practitioners when making normative choices. This will foster a shared understanding between those who conduct, use, or are impacted by assessments regarding what are conceivable and desirable outcomes of using health technology, and how to collect reliable information to assess whether these outcomes are (going to be) realized. It also provides more insight into the implications of different normative choices.

The terms \"animal welfare\" and \"sustainability\" have become major keywords in agricultural politics due to increased public concern about our treatment of animals (particularly in the context of food production) and our treatment of the environment, for example regarding our use of natural resources in farming. Agricultural agendas must therefore address both aspects (among others). What is striking is a problematic tendency within the literature of agricultural science and politics to closely link these issues by declaring animal welfare a part of the concept of sustainability. This joining of both concepts is usually defended on one hand by referring to empirical reciprocal influences between the promotion of animal welfare and the development of more sustainable husbandry systems. On the other hand, the linking of both concepts is promoted by its advocates as a promising strategy to protect current animal welfare standards from being rolled back in favour of economic or ecologic human interests. I will argue that the notions of animal welfare and sustainability need to be understood as independent and at times even competing issues. I will closely analyse both notions and illustrate that they are based on different value assumptions and that conceptually joining them means to blur their differences. Such mixing makes it harder to understand the ethical implications entailed in animal welfare and sustainability which will lead to misguided agricultural political decision-making.

An evidence-informed deliberative process (EDP) is defined as \"a practical and stepwise approach for health technology assessment (HTA) bodies to enhance legitimate health benefit package design based on deliberation between stakeholders to identify, reflect and learn about the meaning and importance of values, informed by evidence on these values.\" In this commentary, I discuss some considerations for EDPs that arise from acknowledging the difference between social and moral values. First, the best practices for implementing EDPs may differ depending on whether the approach is grounded in moral versus social values. Second, the goals of deliberation may differ when focused on moral versus social values. I conclude by offering some considerations for future research to support the use of EDPs in practice, including the need to assess how different approaches to appraisal (eg, more quantitative versus qualitative) impact perceptions of the value of deliberation itself.

Evaluative criteria represent values about characteristics that define a successful evaluand. Criteria direct evaluators\' lines of inquiry, including how aims are framed, which questions are asked, and what conclusions are reached. Yet, criteria often remain unstated, and little is known about criteria employed in practice.
We analyzed 141 evaluations published in Evaluation and Program Planning over four years (2016-2019). Applying a model of criteria domains, we utilized collaborative, interpretive coding to surface and examine the criteria embedded in evaluation aims, questions, and conclusions. We also identified methods used to gather evaluation data.
Analysis illuminated eight criteria domains evident in the sample and revealed how multiple domains were combined within individual evaluations. We found overlap among data collection methods used to investigate different domains.
Findings reveal the variety of criteria employed in practice and how evaluators combine criteria to examine multifaceted evaluands. Findings also highlight the need for evaluators to understand how to adapt methods to investigate different criteria domains. This article contributes to the empirical knowledge base about evaluative criteria and identifies revisions to the criteria model.

The current study modeled the attributions underlying moral concern for animals during childhood and adulthood with the aim of better understanding how concern for animals develops. In total, 241 children aged 6-10 years and 152 adults appraised a range of animals on seven appraisal dimensions and, subsequently rank-ordered which animals they would save in a medicine allocation task. Structural equation modeling revealed several developmental continuities and discontinuities in the dimensions children and adults used to evaluate animal lives. Whereas participants of all ages valued animals based on their aesthetic qualities, intelligence, and perceived similarity to humans, younger children valued animal aesthetics most of all. They also valued benevolence in animals more than older children and adults. Only older children and adults comprehended and valued animals on the basis of their utility as food for humans. Furthermore, neither younger nor older children grasped the role of sentience in the valuation of animals. Only adults factored sentience into their view of what makes animals similar to humans and worthy of moral concern. The results highlight the ways in which moral concern for animals changes across development in several important respects, reflecting an increasingly human-centric orientation.

OBJECTIVE: Integration of ethics into technology assessment in healthcare (HTA) reports is directly linked to the need of decision makers to provide rational grounds justifying their social choices. In a decision-making paradigm, facts and values are intertwined and the social role of HTA reports is to provide relevant information to decision makers. Since 2003, numerous surveys and discussions have addressed different aspects of the integration of ethics into HTA. This study aims to clarify how HTA professionals consider the integration of ethics into HTA, so an international survey was conducted in 2018 and the results are reported here.
METHODS: A survey comprising twenty-two questions was designed and carried out from April 2018 to July 2018. Three hundred and twenty-eight HTA agencies from seventy-five countries were invited to participate in this survey.
RESULTS: Eighty-nine participants completed the survey, representing a participation rate of twenty-seven percent. As to how HTA reports should fulfill their social role, over 84 percent of respondents agreed upon the necessity to address this role for decision makers, patients, and citizens. At a lower level, the same was found regarding the necessity to make value-judgments explicit in different report sections, including ethical analysis. This contrasts with the response-variability obtained on the status of ethical analysis with the exception of the expertise required. Variability in stakeholder-participation usefulness was also observed.
CONCLUSIONS: This study reveals the importance of a three-phase approach, including assessment, contextual data, and recommendations, and highlights the necessity to make explicit value-judgments and have a systematic ethical analysis in order to fulfill HTA\'s social role in guiding decision makers.

OBJECTIVE: Integration of ethics into health technology assessment (HTA) remains challenging for HTA practitioners. We conducted a systematic review on social and methodological issues related to ethical analysis in HTA. We examined: (1) reasons for integrating ethics (social needs); (2) obstacles to ethical integration; (3) concepts and processes deployed in ethical evaluation (more specifically value judgments) and critical analyses of formal experimentations of ethical evaluation in HTA.
METHODS: Search criteria included \"ethic,\" \"technology assessment,\" and \"HTA\". The literature search was done in Medline/Ovid, SCOPUS, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and the international HTA Database. Screening of citations, full-text screening, and data extraction were performed by two subgroups of two independent reviewers. Data extracted from articles were grouped into categories using a general inductive method.
RESULTS: A list of 1,646 citations remained after the removal of duplicates. Of these, 132 were fully reviewed, yielding 67 eligible articles for analysis. The social need most often reported was to inform policy decision making. The absence of shared standard models for ethical analysis was the obstacle to integration most often mentioned. Fairness and Equity and values embedded in Principlism were the values most often mentioned in relation to ethical evaluation.
CONCLUSIONS: Compared with the scientific experimental paradigm, there are no settled proceedings for ethics in HTA nor consensus on the role of ethical theory and ethical expertise hindering its integration. Our findings enable us to hypothesize that there exists interdependence between the three issues studied in this work and that value judgments could be their linking concept.

This paper is a response to a recent article dealing with the concept of value-free sociology by Donald Black. It argues that while a defence of Weber\'s position on the role of values in sociological research is necessary and important, what is offered by Black is counter-productive in important respects. This is because it encourages some of the misunderstandings that it is aimed at remedying and, even more importantly, offers a simplistic discussion of what are complex issues.