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COVID-19 Response: The Need for Economic Evaluation

2022

COVID-19-related policies are fraught with trade-offs. Many of these trade-offs involve dimensions that can be quantitatively weighed using economic evaluation, such as those between health and cost outcomes. Other types of dimensions, such as those involving equity or autonomy, can be harder to quantify but should be considered in a comprehensive health policy decision-making context nonetheless.

The authors of this New England Journal of Medicine Perspectives article outline how methods of economic evaluation and decision analysis can be used to organize and weigh relevant trade-offs for Covid-related policies. The article contains a table that shows a range of economic evaluation methods that vary in how much they aggregate separate outcomes into single metrics (such as combining health and cost effects into net monetary benefit). Aggregating outcomes provides quantification when dealing with multiple outcomes, but also requires specific data or assumptions regarding how to weight these outcomes.

This article argues for decision-makers to be transparent about their objectives and rationales for their policy choices, highlighting the role that economic evaluation can play in that process.

 

Source:

Persad G, Pandya A. A Comprehensive COVID-19 Response: The Need for Economic Evaluation. NEJM 2022; 386 (26): 2449-2451. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmp2202828