Advanced topics in health economic evaluation methods

In the main part of the course decision modeling is explained, discussed and practiced. In economic evaluations of health interventions using a decision-maker perspective it is often necessary to gather information from many sources and track the course of a disease for a relatively long time perspective taking into account the uncertainty of estimates used this way. To do this, decision modeling is becoming increasingly popular in health economic evaluation. In the course different modeling techniques are being explored and the students given a chance to set up and run their own models. In addition to this, several topics that have been covered to a certain extent in the preceding course, Health Economic Evaluation Methods, will be studied further. To these topics belong questions of costing and discounting, the treatment of productivity costs, willingness to pay approaches, and the possibility of ageism in standard health economic evaluation.