Wednesday, March 3, 2010

[EQ] Evidence-based Health Economics: what is it and where does it come from?

Complex Problems or Simple Solutions?
Enhancing Evidence-based Economics to Reflect Reality


Chantale Lessard, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Fellow - Department of Health Administration - School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine University of Montreal - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Stephen Birch, Professor Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada & School of Community Based Medicine University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
CHEPA
working paper series Paper 09-05 - July 8, 2009
The Centre for Health Economics and policy Analysis (CHEPA)


The final version of this working paper will be published as a chapter in: Donaldson, Shemilt, Mugford, Vale & Marsh (eds) (2010) Evidence-Based Decisions and Economics: Health care, social welfare, education and criminal justice. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

Available online [24p.] at: http://www.chepa.org/Libraries/PDFs/WP_09_05.sflb.ashx

 

 ‘……As demands for new health care technologies1 increase in environments of cost-containment, choices must be made about which interventions to fund. Similar problems arise in other sectors as decision-makers struggle to determine the most productive ways of deploying the resources available to them. The evidence-based approach has drawn on economics aimed at providing analytical frameworks to inform decision-making about effectiveness and efficiency of resource use. These frameworks increasingly form the basis for resource allocation decisions.

For example, jurisdictions have adopted formal requirements and guidelines for economic evaluation in health care (1-4). Donaldson and colleagues (5) recognise the need for the application of evidence-based principles in the practice of economic evaluation. However, the importance of adopting evidence-based approaches in health economics is not confined to the economic evaluation of new technologies.

Health economics encompasses a much broader range of influences and constraints on the production of health, illness and recovery in populations (6). Moreover, under an evidence-based approach, the methods and processes used, as well as the principles and assumptions on which they are based, must themselves be compatible with the concepts of economics (5).

 

The evidence-based approach to decision-making draws its foundations from clinical epidemiology. The focus of attention is establishing ‘evidence’ of effectiveness, i.e., providing information on whether a technology works or not (7). This has lead to the development and use of research methods which devalue the complexity of social reality and exclude the consideration of context (8). As a result, the research answers questions about whether the intervention ‘works’ on average in the sample of the population selected for study….”

 

 *      *     *
This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues.  [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAHO/WHO Website

Equity List - Archives - Join/remove: http://listserv.paho.org/Archives/equidad.html
Twitter http://twitter.com/eqpaho

    IMPORTANT: This transmission is for use by the intended recipient and it may contain privileged, proprietary or confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient or a person responsible for delivering this transmission to the intended recipient, you may not disclose, copy or distribute this transmission or take any action in reliance on it. If you received this transmission in error, please notify us immediately by email to infosec@paho.org, and please dispose of and delete this transmission. Thank you.  

No comments: