Resources Repository
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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 | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Global -
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 | Government/Law | Culture/Society | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Global -
ArticlePublication 2016“Nudges” in Law and Policy
This article describes research on Americans’ preferences for types of “nudges” in the context of …
This article describes research on Americans’ preferences for types of “nudges” in the context of law and public policy—those that target “system 1” thinking, meaning the intuitive, emotion-based mechanisms, such as graphic warnings and default rules, versus those that target “system 2” thinking, the rational, deliberative form of cognition, such as statistical information or education-based messages.
Priority Setting/Ethics | Government/Law | Culture/Society | Decision Psychology | Preferences/Values | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine -
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…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Government/Law | Culture/Society | Preferences/Values | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Economics/Finance -
ArticlePublication 2021Rational Policymaking during a Pandemic
Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and …
Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and its global impacts are unprecedented, decisions are taken in a highly uncertain, complex, and rapidly changing environment. In such a context, in which human lives and the economy are at stake, the authors argue that using ideas and constructs from modern decision theory, even informally, will make policymaking a more responsible and transparent process.
Priority Setting/Ethics | Government/Law | Decision Theory | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global -
ArticlePublication 2018Trading Bankruptcy for Health: A Discrete-Choice Experiment
This article in Value in Health evaluates the importance of improved health as compared to …
This article in Value in Health evaluates the importance of improved health as compared to improved financial risk protection in the general United States population. Using a discrete-choice experiment, it finds that 31.3% of the population values cure at all costs, and 8.5% of the population use financial solvency to dominate medical decision making. This study shares insight to the US population values and trade-offs between health outcomes and financial health, and highlights the difficult…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Culture/Society | Preferences/Values | Health Outcomes | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | North America -
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 | Government/Law | Costing Methods | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Chronic Disease/Risk | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global -
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 | Decision Psychology | Mathematical Models | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Global Governance | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Global -
ArticlePublication 2016Estimation of the Cost-Effectiveness Threshold: Why, What, How?
This is a systematic review of the thresholds used in cost-effectiveness analyses in several international …
This is a systematic review of the thresholds used in cost-effectiveness analyses in several international settings. While many health care systems claim to incorporate the cost-effectiveness criterion in their investment decisions, the threshold value is often controversial and not publicly available. Even when available, it often lacks a theoretical or empirical basis. This article aims to identify and critically appraise the conceptual perspectives and methodologies used to date to estimate the cost-effectiveness threshold. The authors…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Culture/Society | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Health/Medicine