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What is cost‐effectiveness analysis?
Author(s) -
Evans David B
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1990.tb136981.x
Subject(s) - cost effectiveness analysis , risk analysis (engineering) , outcome (game theory) , cost–benefit analysis , scarcity , economic analysis , environmental economics , marginal cost , computer science , management science , cost effectiveness , economics , operations research , actuarial science , business , microeconomics , engineering , political science , agricultural economics , law
The treatment of mild‐tomoderate hypertension is used to illustrate the role of cost‐effectiveness analysis in assessing the economic efficiency of pharmacological lnterventlons, The reasons why it is impC)rtaot to consider economic efficiency are discussed, after which the major issues involved in conducting a cost‐effectiveness analysis are outlined. Attention is focused on the relative merits of measuring benefits in terms of intermediate and final outcome indicators, and the concept of marginal cost‐effectiveness analysis is introduced. Although some difficulties arise, costeffectiveness analysis is a potentially powerful guide for decisions about the allocation of scarce resources.