Justice Principles, Prioritization in the Healthcare Sector, and the Effect of Framing

Prioritizing who to provide healthcare services seems unavoidable under conditions of scarce resources. Triage is one of the best-known approaches for establishing the criteria for healthcare allocation. Here we utilize justice distribution principles, i.e., equity, equality, and need as prioritization criteria and investigate the effects of attribute framing on healthcare allocation decisions. In particular, we discuss psychological theory and previous research on framing effects in terms of delivering and withholding services. We also present recent empirical findings demonstrating that framing influences people’s preferences for justice distribution principles in healthcare.