AbstractThis paper presents a method for estimating a non-monetary personal value for death in the context of a decision problem. The method evolved from a case study of a personal decision strategy for choosing whether to receive the swine influenza vaccine, based on the predicted epidemic in the United States in the fall of 1976. Rather than dealing with the decision-maker's assessments of utilities associated with extreme outcomes such as one's own death, the basic approach considers probabilities representing marginal reductions in the probability of death. An application to the swine influenza decision is included.