Discussion
COVID-19 infection
RESPIRATORY DISEASE, COMMUNICABLE DISEASES, COVID-19 INFECTION, REGRESSION, DISEASES
To the best of our knowledge, this study is the experimental attempt to use a direct method to obtain time preferences for money and health in a large representative sample in Thailand. As the subjects discounted money more than health, discounting in this study was domain-specific. The correlation between discounting for money and health was moderate (Kendall’s correlation coefficient 0.202). These findings are in line with previous studiesOur findings regarding the discount rates are consistent with those of a previous study conducted by Attema et al.Furthermore, from the present study, the discount rate for health in the COVID -19 situation was higher than that in the air pollution situation (2.4% vs. 0.7%). This could be because the health consequences are different between communicable diseases and noncommunicable diseases; thus, leading to differences in risk perception and discounting degree. COVID-19 is the current pandemic that would have a significant impact on the population and economy at both the individual and the societal levels. As a result, there is an urgent need to protect against COVID-19 infection rather than the long-term effects caused by air pollution including respiratory diseases.Furthermore, the pooled regression reveals that discounting for money differed from discounting for health (p 0.024), confirming that the discounting was domain-specific. A statistically significant discount was found to be positively correlated with the sample data in the money situation. This means that discounting for money is higher than discounting for health. According to Attema et al.Several limitations in this study should be taken into consideration. First, the study gathered data on time preferences for money and health in a large representative sample of the Chiang Mai Province population. This may limit the study’s generalizability to other provinces or Thailand's representatives. However, the findings of this study might be useful for future studies into determining appropriate discount rates for money and health in the context of health economic evaluation in Thailand. Second, COVID-19 and air pollution situations were used in this study to reflect the current health issues in Chiang Mai Province, particularly, the air pollution with fine particulate matter that occurs every year from January to April has been a common concern. As a result, these situations may have limited generalizability once applied to other contexts. Third, most subjects examined had extreme preferences. This might be due to the data were gathered between April and July 2021, which was the period of the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand. There were limited vaccinations available to Thais at the time. COVID-19 had an impact on the economy at both the individual and the societal levels. Furthermore, air pollution from PM2.5 was a significant health concern in northern Thailand, particularly in Chiang Mai province. Therefore, there was an urgent need of the given benefits from both money and health scenarios. However, we established the study protocol and trained all interviewers to standardize the data collection process and avoid errors. Each step of the experimental design was explained by the interviewer. The respondents were shown the standardized information via instructional video clips. Before the experiment began, the subjects had the opportunity to request additional information or clarification.