Health Affairs

Health Affairs, 26, no. 3 (2007): 625-635 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.26.3.625 © 2007 by Project HOPE	New Online   Getting Health Reform Done   After the State of the Union   Incremental Reform   E-Health in Developing World   Most-Read Articles in 2009

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Risks & Benefits

The Risk-Benefit Balance In The United States: Who Decides?

John Graham and Jianhui Hu

A health policy decision often requires a balancing of risks, costs, and benefits. In this paper we illustrate that there is no uniform answer in the United States to the question of who decides the risk-benefit balance. We use a wide range of case examples from medicine and public health to show the different approaches that are used to allocate decision-making responsibility. Our ultimate purpose is to urge the U.S. health policy community to develop a more consistent way of thinking about how risk-benefit decisions could be guided by general principles.

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