harmbenefit
Harm-benefit, also termed harm-benefit analysis or harms-benefit assessment, is a decision-making framework used to evaluate actions, policies, or interventions by weighing their potential harms against their potential benefits. It is employed across disciplines such as medicine, public policy, law, and environmental management to support ethical justification and resource allocation. Unlike risk-benefit analysis, which emphasizes probabilities of adverse outcomes, harm-benefit analysis foregrounds the moral or practical significance of harms and benefits, including their severity, likelihood, and distribution.
Methodology typically involves identifying relevant harms and benefits for affected parties, estimating their magnitude and probability,
Applications include clinical trials, public health interventions, environmental regulation, and technology deployment. For example, a clinical
Critics note that the framework can be subjective, difficult to quantify, and sensitive to value assumptions,
While widely used, harm-benefit analysis remains contested and is often complemented by other ethical and legal