Applied economic evaluation in health care
Postgraduate course
- ECTS credits
- 3
- Teaching semesters Spring
- Course code
- INTH314
- Number of semesters
- 1
- Teaching language
- English
- Resources
- Schedule
- Reading list
Course description
Objectives and Content
Economic evaluation is the comparative science in which health interventions are compared in terms of both their costs and their effectiveness. The module is divided into one theoretical part, where the focus in on developing an understanding the basic principles, potential roles and limitations of economic evaluation, and one practical part with focus on developing economic evaluation modelling skills.
Theoretical part (days 1-5):
- The structure of economic evaluation, different types of economic evaluation, their usefulness and limitations
- Costing in economic evaluation
- Measuring health benefits in economic evaluation
- Interpreting cost-effectiveness results
- Uncertainty in economic evaluation
- The basics of TreeAge, and building a simple decision tree model
- Building a Markov life cycle model
- Working with large models and Integrating TreeAge with Excel
- Incorporating uncertainty through one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses
- Extending the use of the models: Expected Value of Perfect Information analyses and Microsimulation
- Use the above skills to develop a decision model for an actual research question
- Write term paper explaining objectives, methods and results of the decision model
Practical part (days 6-10):
Applied part (for PhD level), days 11-17:
Learning Outcomes
The module has duration of two weeks for master level, and three weeks for doctoral level. The module is designed to equip students with knowledge about the basic theoretical foundations of Economic Evaluation, and to enable them with the practical skills to undertake health economic decision modelling.
By the end of the first week of the module, students should be able to:
- Know how different types of economic evaluations and modelling techniques can help address policy questions in health care
- Be able to describe and discuss issues on measuring and valuing resource use in health and non-health service costs
- Be able to describe and discuss issues on measuring and valuing health consequences
- Know the basic requirements for presenting output from economic evaluations, be able to correctly interpret results and discuss how results should be applied in priority setting
- To be able to appraise the quality and usefulness of economic evaluations in low-income settings.
By the end of the second week of the module, students should in addition be able to:
- Build and apply a decision analytic model based on a decision-tree
- Build and apply a decision analytic model based on a Markov life cycle model
- Incorporate and analyse uncertainty through one-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses
- Understand the basic principles of Expected Value of Perfect Information and Microsimulation analyses
- Present and interpret cost-effectiveness results
By the end of the last 7 days students who enrol as PhD students should be able to plan, undertake and present the results of an economic evaluation of an actual health intervention of their own choice.
Level of Study
Semester of Instruction
Required Previous Knowledge
Recommended Previous Knowledge
Economists, other social scientists, medical doctors, psychologists, nurses, dentists and others with training at the bachelor level or higher in a relevant subject at a recognized institution can be admitted to the MSc level course.
Applicants with similar background and training at the MSc level or higher in at a recognized institution can be admitted to the PhD level course.
Candidates with practical experience from policy making at local, national or international level will be given priority.
Access to the Course
- Enrolment to complete PhD version of this module
- Relevance of economic evaluation for planned research activities
- Master- and PhD students enrolled at the University of Bergen
- Students in the Erasmus Mundus program MSc in Int Health
- Other tropEd students
Compulsory Assignments and Attendance
Forms of Assessment
The module in continuously assessed and all the daily mandatory assignments must be accepted in order to pass the module. Students will receive separate grades (A-F) for the theoretical and practical parts of the module, as well as a final grade (A-F) that will appear on the course certificate. The grades of the two weeks are weighted equally in the final grade.
Students who register for the doctoral version of the course must in addition produce an essay of 2000-2500 words + references. The essay should serve to explain the objectives, methods and results of a decision analytical model that students will develop, based on their own choice. The topic for the essay/model must be accepted by the course-coordinator before the end of the second week of the module.
The essay is graded (A-F), and represent 50% of the total module grade for doctoral candidates, while the first two weeks are each weighted 25%.
Students who receive an F on the grading are allowed to re-sit according to standard procedures at the University of Bergen.