Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2000Discipline of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Cost-benefit analysis is a general discipline, based on the use of some foundational principles, which …
Cost-benefit analysis is a general discipline, based on the use of some foundational principles, which are not altogether controversial, but have nevertheless considered plausibility. Divisiveness increases as various additional requirements are imposed. There is a trade-off here between easier usability (through locked-up formulae) and more general acceptability (through allowing parametric variations). The paper, by Amartya Sen, examines and scrutinizes the merits and demerits of these additional requirements. The particular variant of cost-benefit approach that is…
Culture/Society | Preferences/Values | Priority Setting/Ethics | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Government/Law -
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…
Health/Medicine | Preferences/Values | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | North America | Europe -
BookPublication 1996Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine, 1st Edition
In 1993, the US Public Health Service convened a panel of 13 nongovernment scientists and …
In 1993, the US Public Health Service convened a panel of 13 nongovernment scientists and scholars with expertise in economics, clinical medicine, ethics, and statistics to review the state of cost-effectiveness analysis and to develop recommendations for its conduct and use in health and medicine. Publishing their results in 1996, they proposed the most explicit set of guidelines (together with their rationale) ever defined on the conduct of CEAs. The panel recommended analysts include a "reference-case"…
Health/Medicine | Preferences/Values | Priority Setting/Ethics | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Evidence Synthesis | Value of Information | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | North America -
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…
Health/Medicine | Decision Theory | Preferences/Values | Decision Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Government/Law | Military/Defense | Science/Technology -
Tutorial/PrimerPublication, Teaching Resource 1980Threshold Approach to Clinical Decision Making
This classic paper provides a "tutorial" for students learning about diagnostic testing, probability revision, and …
This classic paper provides a "tutorial" for students learning about diagnostic testing, probability revision, and how to calculate thresholds for testing, treatment, and no treatment. The authors describe how a physician's estimate of the probability that a patient has a particular disease is a principal factor in the determination of whether to withhold treatment, obtain more data by testing, or treat without subjecting the patient to the risks of further diagnostic tests. Using the concepts of decision analysis,…
Health/Medicine | Probability/Bayes | Test Performance | Value of Information | Decision Analysis -
BookPublication 1980Clinical Decision Analysis
This text was conceived and developed in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health …
This text was conceived and developed in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at the Center for the Analysis of Health Practices. The book had its origins in a set of classroom materials developed during the academic year 1974-75 for an elective course in medical decision making at the Harvard Medical School. In this book students are shown how to structure clinical decision problems, how to systematically formulate the intertwining roles of diagnosis and treatment, how to…
Health/Medicine | Probability/Bayes | Preferences/Values | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Test Performance | Value of Information | State-Transition | Decision Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Child/Nutrition | Chronic Disease/Risk | Economics/Finance | Global | North America | Europe | Graduate | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Quantitative Literacy -
ReviewPublication 1978Basic Principles of ROC Analysis
The limitations of diagnostic "accuracy" as a measure of decision performance require introduction of the …
The limitations of diagnostic "accuracy" as a measure of decision performance require introduction of the concepts of the "sensitivity" and "specificity" yet even these do not provide a unique description of diagnostic performance because they depend on the arbitrary selection of a decision threshold. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve is shown to be a simple yet complete empirical description of this decision threshold effect, indicating all possible combinations of the relative frequencies of the…
Health/Medicine | Test Performance | Clinical Care -
BookPublication 1978Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease
This report from the Institute of Medicine, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery …
This report from the Institute of Medicine, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease, was written to review and critique the decisions made around the 1976 swine flu threat. In 1976, a small group of soldiers at Fort Dix were infected with a swine flu virus that was deemed similar to the virus responsible for the great 1918-19 world-wide flu pandemic. The U.S. government initiated an unprecedented effort to immunize every American against…
Health/Medicine | Decision Analysis | Risk Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Science/Technology | North America