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Advanced prostate cancer is cancer that has spread to another part of the body. Advanced prostate cancer cannot be cured, but the symptoms can be controlled with treatment, sometimes for several years. Many possible treatments exist, and new ones are becoming available. Each treatment has its own benefits and…
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the UK. About 1 in 7 females are diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. There are two types of breast cancer: primary and secondary. Primary cancer is when the cancer has not spread outside the breast or glands…
Governments use social distancing measures to try to control the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries have used different policies. These policies, often lockdowns, aim to slow the spread of the disease. They also prevent hospitals from running out of capacity.
During the first stages of the pandemic, governments put national…
Pandemics require the whole community to act
The COVID-19 pandemic raises pressing questions about the way we think about the public health preferences of citizens. An effective response to this crisis relies on the cooperation of every member of the community, which is why it is important that health preference…
Deciding whether to refer a patient to an Intensive Care Unit (or Critical Care Unit) has always been a difficult clinical and ethical challenge. The limited number of ICU beds means that decisions often have to be made about who should be referred and who should not. Intensive care can…
Patients with undiagnosed rare diseases often undergo a long, stressful and costly testing process. This is called the ‘diagnostic odyssey.’ Standard testing involves numerous tests, missed diagnoses, and considerable stress and uncertainty for affected individuals and families. On average, it takes 5.6 years to…
In 2019, the Methods of Benefit Valuation team in HERU delivered our ‘Using Discrete Choice Experiments in Health Economics’ course twice. The course teaches one of the most commonly used preference elicitation tools: the Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE). In 2019, we held our annual course in Aberdeen, and also held…
Persistent (or chronic) pain has been defined as pain lasting longer than 3 months. It has also been described as pain that lasts longer than expected after healing time. It is thought to affect 20% (or 1 in 5) people in Scotland. For those living with it, persistent pain can…
In this HERU Blog post we introduce the first of our 'HERU Explains...' video series. We'll use the 'HERU Explains...' series to briefly introduce some of the economic tools and concepts we use in health economics.
In this video, we explain how we use Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) to measure…
Around 6,000 children are born in the UK each year with a Syndrome Without a Name (SWAN). A SWAN is a genetic condition so rare that it is very difficult to diagnose. SWANs are often severe and life threatening. They have a huge impact upon quality of life and wellbeing…
