Health Economic Evaluation

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Teaching methodologies include: exposition and explanation of core concepts; the discussion of the main difficulties in identifying and valuing costs and health outcomes; the presentation of examples of health economic evaluation studies; solving exercises during classes. From the second class onwards, papers, which students should read in advance and on which they take an individual mini-test, are discussed. In the last class, an exercise is carried out, collectively, which corresponds to the critical appraisal of a published health economic evaluation.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, the student should understand the relevance and role of health economic evaluation in the context of health policy decisions; should be able to distinguish between the different forms of health economic valuation and, in a given situation, explain which approach is most appropriate; should understand the main techniques for measuring and valuing health costs and outcomes; should be able to interpret the results of health economic evaluation studies; should be able to critically appraise health economic evaluation studies; should know the Infarmed guidelines for the development of health economic evaluation studies in Portugal; should know how to apply the Portuguese tariffs for the calculation of QALYs.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. Background: why and what is health economic evaluation?

2. Forms of health economic evaluation: Cost Minimization; Cost-Effectiveness Analysis; Cost-Utility Analysis; Cost-Benefit Analysis.

3. Identification and measurement/valuation of resources/costs.

4. Identification and measurement/valuation of health outcomes.

5. The cost-effectiveness plane and cost-effectiveness threshold.

6. Critical appraisal of published health economic evaluation studies.

Head Lecturer(s)

Carlota Maria Miranda Quintal

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Mini Tests: 15.0%
Synthesis work: 85.0%

Bibliography

- Drummond MF, Sculpher MJ, Claxton K, Stoddart GL, Torrance GW. Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes. 4rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

- Perelman J, Soares M, Mateus C, Duarte A, Faria R, Ferreira L, Saramago P, Veiga P, Furtado C, Caldeira S, Teixeira MC, Sculpher M (2019): Orientações Metodológicas para Estudos de Avaliação Económica. INFARMED: Autoridade Nacional do Medicamento e Produtos de Saúde, I.P., Lisboa.

- McPake B., Normand C., Smith S., Nolan A. Health economics – An International Perspective. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2020.

- Abbott JH, Wilson R, Pryymachenko Y, Sharma S, Pathak A, Chua JYY. Economic evaluation: a reader's guide to studies of cost-effectiveness. Arch Physiother. 2022 Dec 15;12(1):28.

- Artigos científicos e relatórios indicados no final de cada tópico.