This is an advanced course especially for MGE-students and for advanced studies in economics (KTALS211: Special Courses in Public Economics)  and for post-graduate studies in economics (KTALJ140).
This course is very suitable also for advanced and post-graduate  studies in health economics and in other relevant subjects.

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Course outline:

The course will cover a range of approaches which can be described as ?cost-benefit analysis? and which can be used to weigh up advantages and disadvantages of health care interventions.

It will provide examples of methods which can be used to measure many of the various outcomes which result from the use of health care technologies. It will then show how these building blocks can be combined to form economic evaluations in accordance with cost-benefit thinking.

Starting with the topic ?economic evaluation: some theory and some practice? (Rissanen) the course will continue with largely non-welfarist approaches to the practical application of economic evaluation to health care (Booth). The latter half of the course will deal, amongst other things, with assessing the value of medical tests, estimating transition probabilities and Markov modelling (Josselin).

Course objectives

By the end of the course, participants should:

• have some insight into the analytical perspective and principles underlying the application of economic evaluation to health care, such as utility, equity, efficiency and decision analytic modelling
• be familiar with many of the methods used in different types of economic appraisal
• be better able to assess research which includes estimates of cost, health status measures, Markov modelling, etc. and which can be used to inform macro-medical decision-making

Modes of study:

The course will consist of a total of 25 hours of active participation and coursework plus either an examination or the undertaking of a critical appraisal of an article provided during the course.