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.
F
- First-Order UncertaintyStochastic Uncertainty, Individual-Level Variability
- Uncertainty arising from variation among individual patients within a modelled population, unlike parameter uncertainty concerning imperfect knowledge of a true average value.
H
- Heterogeneity AnalysisSubgroup Variation Study, Effect Heterogeneity Study
- An examination of how a model's results vary across different patient subgroups, unlike parameter uncertainty concerning imprecision in a single average population value.
P
- Parameter UncertaintyInput Uncertainty, Sampling Uncertainty
- Parameter uncertainty is uncertainty about the true values of quantities used as model inputs because those values are estimated from incomplete or imperfect evidence.
- Probabilistic Sensitivity AnalysisPSA, Probabilistic Analysis
- Probabilistic sensitivity analysis (PSA) characterises parameter uncertainty by assigning probability distributions to uncertain model inputs and propagating joint samples through the model.
S
- Second-Order UncertaintyDistributional Parameter Uncertainty, Hyperparameter Uncertainty
- Uncertainty about the parameters of a probability distribution itself, such as its true mean and variance, distinct from the variability the distribution represents.
- Stochastic ProgrammingOptimisation under Uncertainty, Recourse Programming
- An optimisation framework incorporating parameter uncertainty directly into the process, seeking a solution that performs well across possible parameter values.
V
- Variability AnalysisVariability Assessment, Variability Decomposition
- An examination of how outcomes differ across individual patients due to genuine heterogeneity, unlike parameter uncertainty concerning imprecise population-level averages.