Ante-natal screening: what constitutes 'benefit'?

This paper discusses the application of economic appraisal in pre-natal screening. In particular it examines the way in which economists to date have attempted to measure and value the benefits of pre-natal screening. The authors argue that there are problems with existing approaches particularly in terms of the nature of women's utility functions and which arguments are present in these utility functions. They suggest that policy makers are unlikely to take full account of the results of such analyses until economists better attempt to reflect measures of what women want from pre-natal screening.