PUB HLTH 7082 - Health Economic Evaluation and Decision Making

The course is designed to give a broad and practical introduction to health economic evaluation and decision making. The course introduces the concepts underlying the economic evaluation of healthcare technologies and services, including outcome measurement and the assessment of opportunity costs. Module 1 reviews key concepts in economic evaluation, including the QALY as a measure of outcome in economic evaluation and the estimation of opportunity costs to inform decision making. Module 2 covers cost-effectiveness analyses undertaken alongside clinical studies and the use of decision trees as a framework for economic evaluation. The remaining four modules focus on the concepts and application of model-based economic evaluation to predict long term costs and benefits and hence capture all important differences between comparator interventions. The course covers the use of decision trees and state transition models, involving practical sessions in which participants develop, populate, and analyse cost-effectiveness models. The course provides state of the art knowledge on key theoretical and practical issues in the application of health economics to inform the efficient and equitable allocation of healthcare resources. On completion of the course, students will have the necessary knowledge and materials to undertake a basic health economic evaluation; to explore methods for more complex evaluations; and to critically review the conduct and validity of presented or published evaluations.