Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2008Burden of Disease in Personality Disorders
The burden of disease in patients with personality disorders was investigated using a generic quality …
The burden of disease in patients with personality disorders was investigated using a generic quality of life measure. In a sample of 1,708 individuals with a clinical diagnoses of personality disorders the EuroQol EQ-5D (EQ-5D) was administered. The results showed that the mean EQ-5D score was 0.56 and that the total number of personality disorder diagnoses rather than the specific type of disorder determined the quality of life. The borderline personality disorder was not associated…
Health Outcomes | Mental Health | Health/Medicine | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2007Decision Analysis: A Personal Account of How It Got Started and Evolved
In this chapter, Howard Raiffa discusses the evolution of decision analysis and his personal involvement …
In this chapter, Howard Raiffa discusses the evolution of decision analysis and his personal involvement in its development. He describes the early days of Operations Research (OR) in the late 1940s with its approach to complex, strategic decision making. After reading John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1947) and Abraham Wald’s two books (1947, 1950), he became involved in statistical decision theory. A few years later, after reading Leonard…
Preferences/Values | Decision Theory | Probability/Bayes | Decision Analysis | Operations Research | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2007Cost Effectiveness of Interventions to Reduce Maternal Mortality in Mexico
This article, published in PloS One, uses maternal mortality data from Mexico to examine trends …
This article, published in PloS One, uses maternal mortality data from Mexico to examine trends in the provision of maternal health services and the trajectory towards reaching the Millennium Development Goal 5 (MDG 5). The authors developed a model of the natural history of pregnancy and pregnancy related complications and simulated a cohort of 15-year-old women over their lifetime based on national data. The model produced clinical outcomes, costs, and cost-effectiveness of the current standard…
Health Outcomes | Costing Methods | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Latin America & Caribbean -
ArticlePublication 2007Mortality-Risk Valuation and Age
This article addresses whether a single value of statistical life (VSL) should be applied to …
This article addresses whether a single value of statistical life (VSL) should be applied to all age groups or whether lower values should be used for the elderly, recognizing that their life expectancies are shorter than those of younger people. Surveys of different age groups' willingness to pay (WTP) for mortality-risk reductions can potentially help resolve this issue. The 36 studies reviewed suggest that the literature is split on whether older people have a lower WTP…
Preferences/Values | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Climate/Environment | College | Graduate | Critical Thinking/Analysis -
ReviewPublication 2001Modeling for Health Care and Other Policy Decisions: Uses, Roles and Validity
This is a review article of the role of modeling approaches to guide decision making …
This is a review article of the role of modeling approaches to guide decision making in health care and other domains. The role of models to support recommendations on the cost-effective use of medical technologies and pharmaceuticals is controversial. At the heart of the controversy is the degree to which experimental or other empirical evidence should be required prior to model use. The authors argue that the controversy stems in part from a misconception that…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Evidence Synthesis | Mathematical Models | Technology Assessment | Environmental Health | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Climate/Environment | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | North America -
ArticlePublication 2000Preference-Based Measures in Economic Evaluation in Health Care
Estimating preferences for states of health has been an active area of research in recent …
Estimating preferences for states of health has been an active area of research in recent years. Unlike psychophysical approaches, which discriminate levels of health status, preference-based approaches incorporate values or utilities for health outcomes and can be used in cost-effectiveness analyses to aid resource allocation decisions. This chapter considers issues and controversies involved in using preference-based measures in economic evaluation in health care, with a particular emphasis on cost-utility analysis and the estimation of quality-adjusted…
Preferences/Values | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health/Medicine | North America | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2000Valuing Mortality Risk: Theory and Practice
This article discusses the theoretical foundation and empirical methods for estimating the value of a …
This article discusses the theoretical foundation and empirical methods for estimating the value of a statistical life (VSL). VSL is defined by individuals' preferences for small changes in risk and income, and often used by environmental and other economists to measure the monetary value of reduced mortality risk. The article reviews the dependence of VSL on age, income, baseline mortality risk, and latency.
Preferences/Values | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Policy/Regulation | College | Graduate | Critical Thinking/Analysis -
Tutorial/PrimerPublication, Teaching Resource 1994Decision Theory: A Brief Introduction
Decision theory is theory about decisions. The subject is not a very unified one. To …
Decision theory is theory about decisions. The subject is not a very unified one. To the contrary, there are many different ways to theorize about decisions, and therefore also many different research traditions. This text attempts to reflect some of the diversity of the subject. This text, by Sven Ove Hansson, is a non-technical overview of modern decision theory. Its emphasis lies on the less (mathematically) technical aspects of decision theory. It is intended for university students…
Preferences/Values | Decision Theory | Economics/Finance | Graduate | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Quantitative Literacy -
ReviewPublication 1982Decision Analysis: An Overview
This article, written for the non-decision analyst, describes what decision analysis is, what it can …
This article, written for the non-decision analyst, describes what decision analysis is, what it can and cannot do, why one should care to do this, and how one does it. Keeney describes decision analysis as "a formalization of common sense for decision problems which are too complex for informal use of common sense." He provides a more technical definition also, describing decision analysis as "a philosophy, articulated by a set of logical axioms, and a methodology…
Preferences/Values | Decision Theory | Decision Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense | Science/Technology