ABSTRACT
Introduction Even if health is but one factor influencing the utility of the individual, it may though be an especially important one. Yet, economic models describing the individual’s optimal demand for health and factors that affect the individual’s health-related behaviour (from which the individual’s demand for health care, etc., could be derived) are relatively few. This is, though, one of the fundamental issues in the area of health economics, and such knowledge is vital in order both to understand risk behaviour, such as smoking and illicit drug abuse, and to create a basis for normative evaluation of health care programmes based on individual preferences.
