Dictionary
The Dictionary provides concise definitions of health economics terms, arranged alphabetically for quick reference. Use it to understand unfamiliar terminology or confirm the meaning of a specific term.
A
- Acquired Resistance
- A reduction in a cancer treatment's effectiveness developing over time after an initial period of successful disease control, from tumour biological adaptation.
- Affordability Criterion
- A standard judging whether a new technology's aggregate cost is sustainable within a health system's resources, considered separately from cost-effectiveness.
- Affordability Threshold
- The level of budget impact beyond which a payer considers a new technology's total cost unsustainable, regardless of its individual cost-effectiveness.
- Assessment Element
- A specific, defined component of an assessment framework, such as clinical effectiveness or budget impact, evaluated separately before synthesis.
- AWMSG
- The All Wales Medicines Strategy Group, advising the Welsh government on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of newly licensed medicines for NHS Wales.
B
- Base Case Analysis
- The primary analysis using a model's central, best-estimate inputs, providing the main cost-effectiveness result behind a funding recommendation.
- Bayesian Analysis CEACEA
- The application of Bayesian statistical methods to cost-effectiveness analysis, combining prior beliefs with observed trial data to produce posterior distributions.
- Budget Impact Model Pharma
- A budget impact model developed by a pharmaceutical manufacturer to project a product's financial consequences, typically submitted alongside a cost-effectiveness analysis.
C
- Case Management Review
- An evaluation of case management services' effectiveness for a specific patient or population, assessing whether coordination and outcome goals are met.
- Clinical Epidemiology
- A field applying epidemiological methods to clinical questions, such as diagnostic test accuracy, disease natural history, and treatment effectiveness in real-world populations.
- Clinical Evidence
- Data derived from clinical research, including trials and observational studies, used to establish an intervention's safety and efficacy or effectiveness.
- Compliance Committee
- A group within a healthcare organisation overseeing the development, implementation, and effectiveness of the organisation's compliance programme.
- Confidence Ellipse
- A graphical region, typically on a cost-effectiveness plane, showing where the true joint value of incremental cost and effect is expected to fall.
- Cost-Effective Intervention
- An intervention whose additional cost relative to its comparator is acceptable given its additional health benefit, judged against a cost-effectiveness threshold.
D
- Decision Criteria
- The specific factors, such as cost-effectiveness and clinical benefit, an assessment body formally considers when reaching a funding recommendation.
- Decision Rule
- A decision rule is an explicit criterion for choosing between healthcare interventions by comparing their incremental costs and health effects with the relevant cost-effectiveness threshold.
- Decision Rule Application
- The process of applying a predetermined criterion, such as a cost-effectiveness threshold, to an economic evaluation's results to reach a funding recommendation.
- Diabetes Control Rate
- A measure of the proportion of diagnosed diabetes patients achieving recommended blood glucose control targets, an indicator of programme effectiveness.
- Digital Value Assessment
- An evaluation of a digital health technology's overall value, incorporating clinical effectiveness, cost, and user engagement, adapted for software-based interventions.
- Disease Management Review
- An evaluation of a disease management programme's effectiveness at improving outcomes and reducing costs for a specific chronic condition.
- Dominance Analysis
- The systematic process of comparing interventions to identify which are dominated, strictly or through extended dominance, before calculating incremental cost-effectiveness ratios.
- Drug Resistance
- A reduction in a treatment's effectiveness over time due to biological adaptation, such as mutation of a pathogen or tumour cell population.
E
- Economic Evidence
- Data and analysis addressing the costs, resource use, and cost-effectiveness of health interventions, distinct from clinical evidence on safety and efficacy alone.
- Economic Modelling HTAEconomic Modeling HTA
- The application of decision-analytic modelling techniques within the assessment process, used to estimate a technology's cost-effectiveness.
- Economic Review
- An evaluation of the economic evidence, including a submitted cost-effectiveness analysis, typically conducted by an independent technical reviewer.
- End-of-Life Criteria
- Special decision criteria applied by some health technology assessment bodies allowing a higher cost-effectiveness threshold for treatments of conditions with short life expectancy.
- Evidence Synthesis HTA
- The process of systematically combining findings from multiple studies into a coherent summary, supporting both effectiveness conclusions and model parameters.
- Expected Net Benefit
- Expected net benefit is the average net benefit of an alternative across the uncertainty represented in an economic evaluation, calculated at a stated cost-effectiveness threshold.
F
- Foundational Cost Analysis
- The core methodological approach to estimating resources consumed by a health intervention, distinct from cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis.
- Full Assessment
- A comprehensive assessment process involving detailed evaluation of clinical and cost-effectiveness, unlike an abbreviated or rapid review process.
- Fully Incremental Analysis
- A method comparing more than two mutually exclusive interventions by ranking them by effectiveness and calculating each option's ICER against the next best alternative.
H
- Headroom Analysis
- An early-stage technique estimating the maximum price or cost-effectiveness ceiling a technology under development could command, before detailed clinical evidence exists.
- High-Value Care
- Healthcare providing substantial benefit relative to its cost and potential harms, the outcome quality improvement and cost-effectiveness aim to promote.
- Highly Specialized Technology
- A distinct evaluation pathway for treatments addressing very rare conditions, applying different evidentiary and cost-effectiveness standards than common conditions.
- Hypertension Control Rate
- A measure of the proportion of diagnosed hypertension patients achieving recommended blood pressure control targets, an indicator of programme effectiveness.
- Hypertension Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to high blood pressure, comparing medication classes and combinations for cost-effectiveness in cutting cardiovascular events.
I
- Immunogenicity
- The capacity of a biological therapy to provoke an immune response in the patient receiving it, potentially reducing effectiveness or causing adverse reactions.
- Incremental Net Monetary BenefitINMB
- Incremental net monetary benefit, or INMB, converts the difference in health outcomes between two alternatives into a monetary value at a stated cost-effectiveness threshold and then subtracts their difference in cost.
L
- Lambda
- The symbol conventionally used for the cost-effectiveness threshold, or willingness to pay per unit of health effect, in net monetary benefit analysis.
- League Table Construction
- The process of assembling and ranking incremental cost-effectiveness ratios from multiple separate studies into a single comparative table to guide resource allocation.
M
- Model Output
- The results produced by a health economic model, such as total expected cost, QALYs, and the resulting incremental cost-effectiveness ratio.
- Multi-Criteria Analysis HTA
- The application of multi-criteria decision analysis within assessment, explicitly incorporating and weighing multiple decision factors beyond cost-effectiveness alone.
- Multi-Way Threshold Analysis
- A sensitivity analysis identifying the combinations of two or more parameter values at which a model's conclusion, such as cost-effectiveness, would change.
S
- Standard Effectiveness Research
- Effectiveness research conducted using established, widely accepted observational methods rather than novel or experimental approaches.
- Strategic Effectiveness Research
- Effectiveness research conducted to inform long-term clinical or coverage policy rather than a single, immediate treatment decision.
- Subgroup Cost-Effectiveness
- An estimate of an intervention's ICER calculated for a specific patient subgroup rather than for the overall study population.
- System Effectiveness
- A measure of the degree to which a health system achieves its goal of improving population health outcomes.
- Systematic Effectiveness Research
- Effectiveness research conducted through a structured, replicable process, typically synthesising evidence across multiple real-world studies.
V
- Vaccine Cost-Effectiveness
- An assessment of a vaccine's cost relative to its health benefits, typically expressed as cost per QALY or DALY averted.
- Vaccine Effectiveness
- The degree to which a vaccine reduces disease risk under real-world conditions in a general population, unlike efficacy measured under trial conditions.