Economics and Evaluation: Critical Appraisal of Published Economic Evaluations (HE-3)

Economics and Evaluation: Critical Appraisal of Published Economic Evaluations
HE-3

10th November 2022, 10.00 am -12.00 pm

In this virtual session, health economics expert Anna Buylova of the Health Economics Unit will lead attendees through a two-hour interactive session.  

Learning Outcomes

This session is designed to provide an understanding of the methodologies underpinning study design, and their limitations. 

Attendees will leave with: 

• An understanding of sources of bias and what inferences can be made from the results 
• Knowledge of how to interpret a study or publication, its limitations and how they can be relevant to the local setting 
• An in-depth understanding of different types of economic studies 
• Knowledge of tools with which to critically evaluate studies 

Prerequisites

To complement this course, we would recommend you attend:

• HE-1: Health Economic Foundations: Introduction to Health Economics (25th October 2022, 1–3pm) and
• HE-2: Evaluating Service Change and Transformation Programmes (3rd November 2022, 1–3pm). 

Look out for our other HE training sessions in the coming weeks.

Audience 

Analysts and those involved or have an interest in evaluation.

Agenda 

Critically appraising data (50 minutes) 

• Rationale: does the data fit the objective of the study? 
• Different types of data 
• Study targets (e.g. patient/proxy, stakeholder/expert) 
• Quantitative versus qualitative data 
• Cohort studies versus case studies 
• Time dimension: prospective, retrospective and cross-sectional 
• Sources of bias 
• Missing data 
• Normalisation and consolidation 
• Data reporting 

Main features of studies (20 minutes) 

• Costing methods studies 
• Health state preference valuation studies 
• Integrating economic analysis with clinical trials  
• Study requirements and perspectives of decision-makers 
• Inferences that can be made based on results 
• HTA and NICE programmes 

Critical appraisal of studies (20 minutes) 

• General considerations 
• Systematic literature reviews 
• Meta-analysis 
• Practical application: appraising a concrete example of an article 
• Transposing to the local context 

Wrap-up (10–30 minutes) 

• Discussion 
• Conclusions 

Reading Materials

• https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_64048_smxx.PDF 
• Henrikson, N.B. and Skelly, A.C. (2013) Economic studies Part 2: evaluating the quality. Evid Based Spine Care J. 4(1), 2–5. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0033-1341594