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.
P
- Pertussis Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to pertussis, or whooping cough, a highly contagious bacterial respiratory infection largely preventable through vaccination.
- Pharmacovigilance
- The science and activities relating to detecting, assessing, understanding, and preventing adverse effects of a medicine throughout its entire lifecycle.
- Poisson Distribution
- A discrete probability distribution describing the number of times an event occurs within a fixed interval, assuming independence and a constant average rate.
- Poisson Regression
- A modelling technique analysing count outcome data, such as clinical events per patient, based on the assumption that outcomes follow a Poisson distribution.
- Potential Life Years
- A measure of premature mortality calculated as the years of life lost when death occurs before a specified reference age, such as seventy.
- Predictive Validity
- The extent to which a model's forecasts about future events are later confirmed by observed real-world data.
- Prescription Drug Monitoring
- A state-level electronic database tracking the prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances, helping identify and prevent misuse and diversion.
- Pressure Ulcer Rate
- A measure of how frequently hospitalised patients develop pressure ulcers, or bedsores, a nursing care quality and prevention indicator.
- Price Freeze
- A government or payer policy temporarily preventing a manufacturer from increasing a drug's price for a specified period.
- Price Protection
- A contractual clause limiting or preventing future price increases beyond an agreed threshold for a specified period, giving payers cost certainty.
- Privacy Protection
- The legal and technical safeguards preventing unauthorised access to or disclosure of an individual's personal health information.
- PRO-CTCAE
- A patient-reported system complementing the clinician-reported Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events, letting patients report symptom frequency, severity, and interference directly.
- Probability
- A numerical measure, ranging from zero to one, expressing the likelihood that a specific event will occur.
- Probability-to-Rate Conversion
- The mathematical transformation converting a probability of an event over a discrete time interval into its corresponding continuous-time hazard rate.
- Process Quality Indicator
- A measurable metric assessing whether recommended, evidence-based care steps were actually delivered to eligible patients, such as preventive screening rates.
- Progression-Free Survival
- A time-to-event measure defined as the time from treatment start until either disease progression or death from any cause, whichever occurs first.
- Prophylactic Therapy
- Treatment given specifically to prevent a disease or complication before any evidence it has begun to develop, such as pre-surgical antibiotics.
- Prospective Data
- Data collected by following participants forward in time from a defined start, gathered as events occur rather than reconstructed later.
- Public Health
- The science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organised efforts of society.
- Public Health Policy
- Government policy aimed at protecting and improving population health as a whole, covering prevention, promotion, and infrastructure investment.
- Pulmonary Embolism Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to blood clots blocking lung arteries, addressing both acute treatment and longer-term recurrence prevention.
Q
- Quality Assurance
- The systematic procedures used throughout a model's development to prevent, detect, and correct errors, including double programming and independent review.
- Quartile
- A descriptive statistic dividing a ranked dataset into four equal-sized groups, marking the twenty-fifth, fiftieth, and seventy-fifth percentiles.
R
- Rate-to-Probability Conversion
- The mathematical transformation converting a continuous-time hazard rate into the probability of an event occurring within a discrete time interval.
- Readmission Management
- The strategies used to identify patients at high risk of hospital readmission and implement targeted interventions to prevent avoidable returns.
- Relapse-Free SurvivalRFS
- A time-to-event measure defined as the time from treatment completion until disease recurrence or death, used for curative-intent treatments.
- Remediation
- The process of correcting an identified compliance deficiency and implementing measures to prevent its recurrence, typically following an audit finding.
- Reporting Standards
- The requirements governing how research findings, positive and negative, must be documented and disclosed, to prevent selective reporting bias.
- Representativeness Concept
- A cognitive heuristic in which the probability of an event is judged by how closely it resembles a typical case rather than actual likelihood.
- Resource Definition
- The specification within a discrete event simulation of the limited assets, such as staff or beds, that entities need to be processed.
- Retained Foreign Object
- A serious, generally preventable safety event in which a surgical instrument or item is unintentionally left inside a patient after surgery.
- Retaliation Protection
- A legal safeguard preventing an employer from punishing an employee for reporting suspected fraud, compliance violations, or other misconduct.
- Retrospective Data
- Data collected by looking backward from a defined point, reconstructed from existing records rather than gathered as events occur.
- Right Censoring
- The most common form of censoring, occurring when follow-up ends or a patient is lost before the event of interest has occurred.
- Risk RatioRR
- A measure calculated as the ratio of risk in one group compared to another, synonymous with relative risk for event comparisons.
- Root Cause Analysis
- A systematic process investigating a serious adverse event to identify its fundamental, underlying causes, rather than only surface-level circumstances.
- Rotavirus Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to rotavirus, a leading cause of severe childhood diarrhoeal illness largely preventable through vaccination.
S
- Safety
- The degree to which an intervention avoids causing unintended harm, assessed through systematic monitoring and reporting of adverse events.
- Safety Policy
- An organisational policy establishing protocols intended to prevent patient harm, covering medication administration, infection control, and fall prevention.
- Safety Population
- The complete set of trial participants who received at least one dose of study treatment, used to assess adverse events regardless of original assignment.
- Schoenfeld Residual
- A residual specific to the Cox model, calculated at each event time, used to test whether the proportional hazards assumption holds.
- Self-Harm Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to self-harm behaviours and prevention, covering crisis intervention, psychotherapy, and public health strategies.
- Sexual Health Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to sexual health conditions and services, covering infection prevention, contraception, and sexual dysfunction treatment.
- Shingles Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to shingles, a painful chickenpox virus reactivation mainly affecting older adults, largely preventable through vaccination.
- Silver Plan
- A US Affordable Care Act marketplace plan category with a moderate actuarial value, around seventy percent, serving as the subsidy benchmark tier.
- Sports Medicine Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to sports-related injuries, covering both acute treatment and injury prevention programmes.
- SSI Rate
- A measure of the frequency of surgical site infections following a procedure within a facility, a surgical infection prevention indicator.
- Substance Abuse Policy
- Government policy addressing substance use disorders and their consequences, covering prevention, treatment funding, and harm reduction initiatives.
- Substance Use Economics
- The application of health economic evaluation to substance use disorders broadly, covering prevention, medication-assisted treatment, and behavioural therapy.
- Surgical Care Improvement
- A quality improvement initiative reducing preventable surgical complications through adherence to defined evidence-based care processes, such as antibiotic timing.