Resources Repository
-
ArticlePublication 2023Benefits and Costs of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
Written mid-pandemic, this article evaluates the direct costs and health benefits of requiring COVID-19 vaccinations …
Written mid-pandemic, this article evaluates the direct costs and health benefits of requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for U.S. federal employees and healthcare and private sector workers. These mandates were controversial and some were halted by litigation. If they had been implemented as intended, the net benefits would depend on the course of the pandemic. If a more transmissible variant (such as Omicron) emerges, the net benefits may be large. If the pandemic instead fades, the benefits…
Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Mathematical Models | State-Transition | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | North America -
ArticlePublication 2022Vaccinations versus Lockdowns to Prevent COVID-19 Mortality
This analysis estimated the costs associated with preventing Covid-19 deaths by vaccinations versus lockdowns. Publicly …
This analysis estimated the costs associated with preventing Covid-19 deaths by vaccinations versus lockdowns. Publicly available datasets from the Israeli Ministry of Health were used to model the parameters of the pandemic in Israel. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker was used for quantitative data on government policies. Data on the Israeli economy were taken from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The models demonstrate that the first lockdown prevented 1022 COVID-19 deaths at the cost…
Decision Analysis | Economics/Finance | Decision Theory | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | State-Transition | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Middle East & North Africa -
ArticlePublication 2022COVID-19 Response: The Need for Economic Evaluation
COVID-19-related policies are fraught with trade-offs. Many of these trade-offs involve dimensions that can be …
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…
Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Global | North America -
ArticlePublication 2022Emerging Therapies for COVID-19: The Value of Information From More Clinical Trials
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated time-sensitive policy and implementation decisions regarding new therapies in the face …
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated time-sensitive policy and implementation decisions regarding new therapies in the face of uncertainty. This study aimed to quantify consequences of approving therapies or pursuing further research. The authors used a cohort state-transition model for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 to estimate quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and costs associated with multiple drug regimens and usual care. For each they assessed immediate approval, use only in research, emergency use authorization or reject. They conducted cost-effectiveness…
Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Value of Information | State-Transition | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | North America | Europe -
ReviewPublication 2017Patients' Preferences in Cancer Treatment: Review of Discrete Choice Experiments
This study aimed to systematically review discrete choice experiments (DCEs) about patients’ preferences for cancer …
This study aimed to systematically review discrete choice experiments (DCEs) about patients’ preferences for cancer treatment and assessed the relative importance of outcome, process and cost attributes. A systematic literature review was conducted using PubMed and EMBASE to identify all DCEs investigating patients’ preferences for cancer treatment between January 2010 and April 2016. Attributes were classified into outcome, process and cost attributes, and their relative importance was assessed. A total of 28 DCEs were identified.…
Decision Analysis | Economics/Finance | Preferences/Values | Health Outcomes | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | North America | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2016Economic Evaluation: Bibliometric Analysis of Recent Literature
This bibliometric analysis focuses on recently published full economic evaluations of health interventions and reflects …
This bibliometric analysis focuses on recently published full economic evaluations of health interventions and reflects critically on the implications of the findings. The authors created a database drawing on 14 health, economic, and/or general literature databases for articles published between 1 January 2012 and 3 May 2014 and identified 2844 economic evaluations. They examined the distribution of publications between countries, regions, and health areas studied and compared the relative volume of research with disease burden.…
Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global -
ReviewPublication 2016Remembering Howard Raiffa
Howard Raiffa (1924-2016) had a profound influence on all aspects of the decision sciences and on …
Howard Raiffa (1924-2016) had a profound influence on all aspects of the decision sciences and on the fields of systems analysis and operations research. He guided the introduction of the decision sciences into numerous fields such as business, medicine, public health, the environmental sciences, and law, and was instrumental in building world-recognized institutions such as the Kennedy School at Harvard and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis near Vienna, Austria. This article is a thoughtful tribute by…
Decision Analysis | Economics/Finance | Decision Theory | Preferences/Values | Operations Research | Business/Industry | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense | North America -
ReviewPublication 2016Using Economic Evidence to Set Healthcare Priorities in LMIC
Policy makers in low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly looking to develop ‘evidence-based’ frameworks …
Policy makers in low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly looking to develop ‘evidence-based’ frameworks for identifying priority health interventions. This paper synthesizes and appraises the literature on methodological frameworks – which incorporate economic evaluation evidence – for the purpose of setting healthcare priorities in LMICs. A systematic search of Embase, MEDLINE, Econlit and PubMed identified 3968 articles with a further 21 articles identified through manual searching. A total of 36 papers were eligible for inclusion.…
Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Technology Assessment | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2016Challenges of Prioritization
Cost-effectiveness analysis has traditionally been applied primarily to very specific interventions, such as drugs and …
Cost-effectiveness analysis has traditionally been applied primarily to very specific interventions, such as drugs and diagnostics; in addition, the evidence base drawn on for evaluating such interventions is relatively good, given the medical research industry surrounding their testing. However, with increasing success in controlling infectious diseases, many of the health challenges facing countries concern broad threats to health with multiple causes, such as obesity, where the relationship between policy action and health benefit is not…
Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Chronic Disease/Risk | Mental Health | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | Global