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Trying to do better than average: a commentary on ‘statistical inference for cost‐effectiveness ratios’
Author(s) -
Briggs Andrew,
Fenn Paul
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
health economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.55
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1099-1050
pISSN - 1057-9230
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1099-1050(199709)6:5<491::aid-hec293>3.0.co;2-r
Subject(s) - inference , statistical inference , econometrics , statistics , economics , computer science , mathematics , artificial intelligence
In a recent paper, Laska, Meisner and Siegel address issues concerning hypothesis testing in cost‐effectiveness analysis. They relate the relative magnitude of two average cost‐effectiveness ratios to the incremental cost‐effectiveness ratio and go on to propose a statistical procedure for testing the equality of two average ratios. In this paper, we show why the use of average cost‐effectiveness ratios is misleading and argue that the appropriate focus for cost‐effectiveness analysis is the estimation of confidence intervals around incremental cost‐effectiveness ratios. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.