public financing of artificial reproductive technologies: ethical foundation, cost-effectiveness and allocation of resources

About one in eight couples are experiencing problems of sub/infertility but there is a wide range of effective Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) available that help these couples in realizing their child wish. However, these can be costly and are controversial to fund. The aim is to investigate whether public health insurance should pay for fertility treatments, and if so why and how much. In addition, the health and quality of life impact of subfertility will be investigated, in combination with the preferences of subfertile couples versus the general public towards the funding of fertility care. Therefore, systematic reviews, discrete choice experiments and multiple-criteria decision analysis will be used as methods of analysis.