COVID-19 vaccines should be evaluated from the societal perspective

Figures & data

Table 1. Differences between the health payer and societal perspectives with respect to allocation and determination of the health payer’s budget, and relevance to Covid-19 vaccination (CV).

	Health payer perspective	Societal perspective
Allocation of the health payer’s budget	Allocate to maximize population health	Allocate to maximize population social welfare
	Relevance to CV: Ignore socio-economic benefits of CV	Relevance to CV: Include socio-economic benefits of CV
Determination of the health payer’s budget	Take the health payer’s budget as given and optimal	Raise or lower the health budget if the marginal social value from publicly funded health spending exceeds or falls below that of spending elsewhere in the public or private sector.
	Relevance to CV: Forego raising the health payer’s budget to help fund CV even if doing so would raise social welfare or population health	Relevance to CV: Raise the health payer’s budget to help fund CV if this would raise social welfare.