Resources Repository
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Tutorial/PrimerPublication, Teaching Resource 2005Refining Clinical Diagnosis with Likelihood Ratios
This article serves as a concise tutorial about the interpretation and use of likelihood ratios …
This article serves as a concise tutorial about the interpretation and use of likelihood ratios in clinical decision-making. Likelihood ratios can refine clinical diagnosis on the basis of signs and symptoms; however, they are underused for patients' care. A likelihood ratio is the percentage of ill people with a given test result divided by the percentage of well individuals with the same result. Ideally, abnormal test results should be much more typical in ill individuals…
Test Performance | Value of Information | Health/Medicine -
ReviewPublication 2005Implications of Modern Decision Science for Military Decision-Support Systems
This review monograph was prepared in response to a request from the United States Air …
This review monograph was prepared in response to a request from the United States Air Force Research Laboratory for a study of modern decision science that would aid in its planning of research programs and, more specifically, developing methods and tools for decision support. The emphasis is on relatively high-level decisionmaking rather than, say, that of pilots or intelligence analysts in the midst of real-time operations. They focus largely on what the military refers to as…
Decision Analysis | Decision Theory | Decision Psychology | Military/Defense | North America -
ReviewPublication 2004Decision Analysis Applications in Operations Research
This article reviews trends and developments in decision analysis applications, based primarily on a survey of …
This article reviews trends and developments in decision analysis applications, based primarily on a survey of decision analysis applications published in the period 1990–2001 in major English-language operations research and closely related journals. It serves as a guide to those interested in recent applications in specific areas or in applications that illustrate the use of particular methods. The authors identify and discuss noteworthy trends in, and developments affecting, published applications, including those in computer software and…
Decision Analysis | Operations Research | Business/Industry | Health/Medicine -
BookPublication 2003WHO Guide to Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
This 2003 guide provides a method of assessing the cost-effectiveness of health interventions for an …
This 2003 guide provides a method of assessing the cost-effectiveness of health interventions for an international audience. The authors aim to inform the policy maker and to maximize the generalizability of results across settings. Part I begins with a description of cost-effectiveness analysis. It then considers issues relating to study design, estimating costs, assessing health effects, discounting, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, and reporting results. Part II provides examples to illustrate the principles in Part I. Detailed discussions…
Costing Methods | Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Outcomes | Evidence Synthesis | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Health/Medicine | Global -
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"…
Costing Methods | Preferences/Values | Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Outcomes | Evidence Synthesis | Value of Information | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | 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…
Decision Analysis | Decision Theory | Preferences/Values | Policy/Regulation | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Energy/Engineering | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense | Science/Technology -
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…
Test Performance | Clinical Care | Health/Medicine