Abstract
Introduction: While there are several excellent manuscripts on how to design and carry out economic evaluations of health program alternatives, researchers often fail to consider practical issues useful to the decision‐makers. These issues will become increasingly important as we use comparative effectiveness research and cost‐effectiveness analysis to assess and improve healthcare delivery in the U.S. healthcare system.
Objective: Identify and describe key research design and methods issues that facilitate decision‐makers' use of economic evaluations of cancer prevention.
Methods: Assume the perspective of a health plan or provider group interested in selecting and providing the most cost‐effective cancer prevention services. Examine the economic evaluation literature to identify and describe issues that are important to decision‐makers' selection, planning and execution of prevention strategies, that may be unexamined and/or underreported. Explain the importance of these issues for translating research into practice.
Results and Conclusion: Key limitations include 1) designing overly restrictive trials that fail to represent the target population, 2) excluding cost of identifying and recruiting the target populations, 3) not providing separate unit cost from quantity of resources, 4) understating labor cost, 5) not providing a budget impact analysis, 6) not separating fixed from variable cost. The primary purpose of economic evaluation studies is to inform decision‐makers about the relative costs and effects of program or treatment alternatives, but this falls short of what is needed to accurately plan and implement changes in health plans and healthcare organizations.
Citation Information: Cancer Prev Res 2010;3(1 Suppl):SS01-05.
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