Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2016Accounting for Technical, Ethical, and Political Factors in Priority Setting
This article investigates two cases of priority setting to explore how, in addition to technical …
This article investigates two cases of priority setting to explore how, in addition to technical considerations, ethical and political factors shape the allocation of health resources. First, they discuss how Thai authorities adjudicated a coverage decision for HLA-B*1502 screening, which meets the national cost-effectiveness threshold for only some of the conditions it can detect. Second, they consider England’s Cancer Drugs Fund to investigate the interplay of technical decision making and political reality. The findings suggest four concluding…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Government/Law | Europe | Global | Health Systems | Chronic Disease/Risk | Policy/Regulation | Climate/Environment | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2016Defining a Health Benefits Package: What Are the Necessary Processes?
There is immense interest worldwide in the notion of universal health coverage. A major policy …
There is immense interest worldwide in the notion of universal health coverage. A major policy focus in moving toward universal health coverage has been on the key policy question: what services should be made available and under what conditions? This article focuses on how a feasible set of universal health coverage services can be explicitly defined to create what is commonly known as a “health benefits package”, a set of services that can be feasibly financed…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Government/Law | Culture/Society | Global | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2017When Cost-Effective Interventions Are Unaffordable
Many health interventions deemed cost-effective are not affordable. Despite the importance of affordability to policymakers, …
Many health interventions deemed cost-effective are not affordable. Despite the importance of affordability to policymakers, little of the cost-effectiveness literature in global health addresses this issue. Budget impact analysis (BIA) describes an intervention's short-term costs and savings from the payer's perspective. This paper assesses the current use of budget impact analysis (BIA) and cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) in health economic assessments conducted for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The authors recommend steps researchers and policymakers can…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Government/Law | Global | Health Systems | Costing Methods | Infectious Diseases | Chronic Disease/Risk | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2017Making Fair Choices on the Path to UHC: Applying Principles to Difficult Cases
Progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) requires making difficult trade-offs. The World Health Organization (WHO) …
Progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) requires making difficult trade-offs. The World Health Organization (WHO) Consultative Group on Equity and UHC has endorsed the principles for making such decisions. These principles include maximizing population health, priority for the worse off, and shielding people from health-related financial risks. But how should one apply these principles in particular cases, and how should one adjudicate between them when their demands conflict? This article by some members of the…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Government/Law | Culture/Society | Global | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2016Departures from Cost-Effectiveness Recommendations: Health System Constraints
Cost-effectiveness analysis assumes a single constraint, in the form of the budget constraint, whereas in reality …
Cost-effectiveness analysis assumes a single constraint, in the form of the budget constraint, whereas in reality decision makers may be faced with numerous other constraints. The objective of this article is to develop a typology of constraints that may act as barriers to implementation of cost-effectiveness recommendations. Six categories of constraints are considered: the design of the health system; costs of implementing change; system interactions between interventions; uncertainty in estimates of costs and benefits; weak governance;…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Government/Law | Middle East & North Africa | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Education/Labor | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2017Policy Makers, the International Community and the Population: Case Study on HIV/AIDS
A four-period game is developed between a policy maker, the international community, and the population. …
A four-period game is developed between a policy maker, the international community, and the population. This research supplements, through implementing strategic interaction, earlier research analyzing "one player at a time." The first two players distribute funds between preventing and treating diseases. The population reacts by degree of risky behavior which may cause no disease, disease contraction, recovery, sickness/death. More funds to prevention implies less disease contraction but higher death rate given disease contraction. The cost…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Government/Law | Global | Health Systems | Decision Psychology | Mathematical Models | Infectious Diseases | Global Governance | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine