PU5401: ECONOMIC EVALUATION - PRINCIPLES AND FRAMEWORKS (2018-2019)

This course covers issues involved in identifying, measuring and valuing costs and benefits. Consideration will be given to the importance of health outcomes, non-health outcomes and process attributes when valuing the benefits of health care interventions. The student will be introduced to Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) and the use of standard gamble and time-trade-off to estimate quality weights within the QALY framework. Consideration will be given here to the creation and use of generic QALY measures such as EuroQol; as well as specific QALY measures.

The above techniques will be introduced and explained, using examples from health care. It should be noted that whilst these techniques were introduced to go beyond health outcomes, they can also be used to value such outcomes. It will be shown how costs and benefits can be brought together within the framework of an economic evaluation (e.g. cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis and cost-benefit analysis).

The QALY measure is concerned with valuing health outcomes. Contingent valuation and discrete choice experiments have been developed in health economics to go beyond the health outcomes paradigm, and consider the value of non-health outcomes and process attributes.  

Course Aims:

The aim of this course is to

• Be aware of the costs and benefits to be considered in an economic evaluation, as well as how to value these costs and benefits
• Be familiar with the main approaches to economic evaluation (cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), cost-utility analysis (CUA) and cost-benefit analysis (CBA)) and know when to use these different approaches.
• Appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches to economic evaluation
• Understand the key notions of opportunity cost, marginal analysis, discounting and sensitivity analysis within the framework of an economic evaluation

Information on contact teaching time is available from the course guide.

More Information about Week Numbers

1 set short answer essay in the first assignment (33%), 2 short answer essays in the second assignment (66%).

Multiple choice questionnaires.

Feedback after submission is online. Score based on the number of correct answers, plus explanation of correct answers.