health financing

WEEKLY SUMMARY
Last week you were introduced to health financing. You explored mechanisms, objectives, and activities of health financing. Implicit and explicit priority-setting approaches were discussed. The aim of this week is to introduce you to economic evaluations. The main types of economic evaluation will be explained in this session. You will calculate and interpret incremental cost-effectiveness ratios as well as apply simple forms of discounting. The main approaches of sensitivity analysis will be explained.

OBJECTIVES
Learning objectives for Week 5
On completion of this week, students will be able to:
•    Describe the key types of economic evaluation.
•    Calculate and interpret incremental cost-effectiveness ratios.
•    Identify the main types of costs described in economic evaluation.
•    Explain what is meant by discounting in economic evaluation.
•    Understand the role of sensitivity analysis in economic evaluation.

WEEK 5 LEARNING RESOURCES
REQUIRED RESOURCES
•    Morris, S., Devlin, N. & Parkin, D. (2012) ‘Chapter 10: Principles of economic evaluation in health care’. In: Economic analysis in health care. 2nd Ed. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 232-252.
•    Morris, S., Devlin, N. & Parkin, D. (2012) ‘Chapter 12: Economic evaluation methods’. In: Economic analysis in health care. 2nd Ed. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 286-320.
•    Palmer, S., Byford, S. & Raftery, J. (1999)‘Types of economic evaluation’, British Medical Journal, 318 (7194), p. 1349 [Online]. Available from: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/docview/204012213/4B8DDC0EC0AB4ABCPQ/1?accountid=12117 (Accessed: 13 June 2014).
•    Raftery, J. (1998) ‘Economic evaluation: an introduction’, British Medical Journal, 316 (7136), pp. 1013-1014 [Online]. Available from:
•    http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/docview/203991216/B38E1D7447504736PQ/2?accountid=12117 (Accessed: 18 August 2010).
•    Byford, S. & Raftery, J. (1998) ‘Perspectives in economic evaluation’, British Medical Journal, 316 (7143), pp. 1529-1530 [Online]. Available from:
•    http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/docview/203932400/B2B1838AE564314PQ/1?accountid=12117 (Accessed: 13 June 2014).

SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES
•    Evans, D.B., Edejer, T.T.-T., Adam, T. & Lim, S.S. (2005) ‘Methods to assess the costs and health effects of interventions for improving health in developing countries’, British Medical Journal, 331 (7525), pp. 1137-1140 [Online]. Available from:
•    http://www.bmj.com.ezproxy.liv.ac.uk/content/331/7525/1137.full (Accessed: 18 August 2010).
•    Ginnelly, L., Sculpher, M., Bojke, C., Roberts, I., Wode, A. & Diguiseppi, C. (2005). ‘Determining the cost effectiveness of a smoke alarm give-away program using data from a randomized controlled trial’, The European Journal of Public Health, 15 (5), pp. 448-453 [Online]. Available from:
•    http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/5/448.long (Accessed: 18 March 2014).
•    Phillips, C. & Thompson, G. (2009) ‘What is cost-effectiveness?’, What Is…? Hayward Medical Communications [Online]. Available from:
•    http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/painres/download/whatis/Cost-effect.pdf (Accessed: 18 August 2010).
•    Center for Evidence-Based Medicine(n.d.) Glossary of EBM terms [Online]. Available from: http://ktclearinghouse.ca/cebm/glossary/ (Accessed:17 June 2014).