Concepts in Economic Evaluation

Course Objectives

By the end of this course students should be able to: (i) describe how economic theory is or is not related to the concepts underlying the valuation of costs and benefits in cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis; (ii) apply a marginal decision-making process to economic evaluation results; (iii) relate the US Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine guidelines to the concepts underlying economic evaluation; (iv) Differentiate among the cost of illness, cost minimization, cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, and cost-benefit studies; (v) Use supply and demand curves to interpret the costs and benefits associated with policy changes; (vi) assess willingness to pay for health improvements through a variety of methods including the value of a statistical life, conjoint analysis, and contingent market valuation.; (vii) calculate theoretically motivated costs of programs and interventions incorporating inflation adjustments and discounting to present value; (viii) interpret cost-benefit results to make policy alternative recommendations; (ix) describe different study designs for cost-benefit studies

Readings

Textbook Drummond MF, O'Brien B, Stoddart GL, Torrance GW. Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes, Second Edition. Oxford University Press. 1997. Two reference texts are recommended for review Boardman, Greenberg, Vining, and Weimer. 1996. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Concepts and Practice, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Sloan (ed.), Valuing Health Care: Costs, Benefits, and Effectiveness of Pharmaceuticals and Other Medical Technologies, Cambridge University Press, 1995.