Resources Repository
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BookPublication 2014Decision Making in Health and Medicine: Integrating Evidence and Values
Decision making in health care involves consideration of a complex set of diagnostic, therapeutic and …
Decision making in health care involves consideration of a complex set of diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic uncertainties. Medical therapies have side effects, surgical interventions may lead to complications, and diagnostic tests can produce misleading results. Furthermore, patient values and service costs must be considered. Decisions in clinical and health policy require careful weighing of risks and benefits and are commonly a trade-off of competing objectives: maximizing quality of life vs maximizing life expectancy vs minimizing…
Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine | Economics/Finance | Health Systems | Probability/Bayes | Preferences/Values | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Test Performance | Value of Information | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Government/Law | Global | North America | Europe | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Quantitative Literacy -
ReviewPublication 2013Valuing the Economic Benefits of Complex Interventions
This is a review of economic evaluations of complex health interventions. Complex interventions, involving interlinked …
This is a review of economic evaluations of complex health interventions. Complex interventions, involving interlinked packages of care, challenge the application of current methods of economic evaluation that focus on measuring only health gain. The authors find that complex interventions may be problematic on two levels. First, the complexity means the intervention may not fit into one of the current appraisal systems, and/or second, maximizing health is not the only objective. This paper discusses the…
Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine | Economics/Finance | Health Systems | Preferences/Values | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Science/Technology | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2010Cost-Effectiveness of Alternative Pregnancy Termination Strategies in Nigeria and Ghana
To explore the policy implications of increasing access to safe abortion in Nigeria and Ghana, …
To explore the policy implications of increasing access to safe abortion in Nigeria and Ghana, the authors developed a computer-based decision analytic model which simulates induced abortion and its potential complications in a cohort of women. The model was used to compare the costs and benefits of unsafe abortion and three first-trimester abortion modalities: hospital-based dilatation and curettage, hospital- and clinic-based manual vacuum aspiration (MVA), and medical abortion using misoprostol (MA). The results showed that…
State-Transition | Health/Medicine | Economics/Finance | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Culture/Society | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2007Economic Evaluation of Hepatitis B Vaccination in Low-Income Countries: Cost-Effectiveness Affordability Curves
In the face of uncertainties about both the health and economic consequences of a vaccine …
In the face of uncertainties about both the health and economic consequences of a vaccine program, as well as the availability and magnitude of resources needed to fund the program, cost-effectiveness affordability curves can provide information to decision-makers about the probability that a program will be both cost-effective and affordable: these are distinct but equally relevant considerations in resource-poor settings. This paper describes the application of this method to assess a hepatitis B vaccination program in the…
State-Transition | Health/Medicine | Economics/Finance | Health Systems | Costing Methods | Mathematical Models | Microsimulation | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Sub-Saharan Africa -
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…
Risk Analysis | Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Science/Technology | North America -
ArticlePublication 2020Infectious Disease Pandemic Planning and Response: Incorporating Decision Analysis
During a pandemic, decisions must be made under rapidly changing, uncertain conditions. Despite advances in …
During a pandemic, decisions must be made under rapidly changing, uncertain conditions. Despite advances in analytical methods for gaining early situational awareness (i.e., of a disease’s transmissibility and severity) and for predicting the likely effectiveness of interventions, a major gap exists globally in terms of integrating this information in policy documents. The authors argue that mathematical and statistical models are important tools for pandemic planning and response. Once an outbreak of pandemic potential has been…
Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | Government/Law | Global -
Lesson/ModuleVideo, Teaching Resource 2018Introduction to Effectiveness, Patient Preferences, and Utilities
This video is intended to provide an introduction to the concept of the quality-adjusted life …
This video is intended to provide an introduction to the concept of the quality-adjusted life year or QALY as well as preference measurement. Descriptions of the several techniques that can be used for measuring QALYs in economic evaluations are presented. This video is part of the Conducting Cost-Effectiveness Analysis with VA Data (HCEA) free course offered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development group focused on cost-effectiveness analysis and budget…
Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Preferences/Values | North America | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Quantitative Literacy -
Lesson/ModuleVideo, Teaching Resource 2018An Overview of Decision Analysis
This video is intended to provide high-level overview of the field of decision analysis and …
This video is intended to provide high-level overview of the field of decision analysis and presents topics that include: why engage in decision analysis; what are the differences between cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and budget impact analysis; and different ways to conduct a decision analysis – such as modeling or measuring alongside a clinical trial. This video is part of the Conducting Cost-Effectiveness Analysis with VA Data (HCEA) free course offered by the…
Decision Analysis | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | North America | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Critical Thinking/Analysis | Decision Making/Leadership | Quantitative Literacy -
ArticlePublication 2017Likelihood Approach for Calibration of Stochastic Epidemic Models
Stochastic transmission dynamic models are especially useful for studying the early emergence of novel pathogens …
Stochastic transmission dynamic models are especially useful for studying the early emergence of novel pathogens given the importance of chance events when the number of infectious individuals is small. However, methods for parameter estimation and prediction for these types of stochastic models remain limited. This paper describes a calibration and prediction framework for stochastic compartmental transmission models of epidemics. The proposed method applies a linear noise approximation to describe the size of the fluctuations, and…
Dynamic Simulation | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Dynamic Transmission | Calibration/Validation | Infectious Diseases | Global