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.
C
- Choice-Based MethodTermChoice-Based Valuation, Preference Elicitation Choice
- A health state valuation technique in which respondents choose between alternative states or gambles, such as the standard gamble or time trade-off.
- Conjoint AnalysisConceptConjoint Study, Attribute Trade-Off Study
- Conjoint analysis is a family of stated preference methods estimating how people value treatment or service attributes from ratings, rankings or choices.
- Cost-Effectiveness PlaneConceptCE Plane, Incremental Cost-Effect Plane
- The cost-effectiveness plane graphs incremental cost (y-axis) against incremental effect (x-axis); its four quadrants show dominance or a trade-off.
D
- Direct ElicitationConceptDirect Valuation, First-Hand State Valuation, Direct Utility Assessment
- A health state valuation approach in which respondents value a state directly, using techniques such as the standard gamble or time trade-off.
E
- Equity-Efficiency Trade-offConceptEquity-Efficiency Tradeoff, Efficiency-Equity Trade-off, Equity and Efficiency Trade-off
- The equity-efficiency trade-off is the total health given up for a fairer distribution when the option that maximises health is not the fairest one.
M
- Multi-Criteria Decision AnalysisConceptMCDA, Multi-Criteria Appraisal, Multi-Criteria Analysis HTA
- Multi-criteria decision analysis is a family of structured methods that compares alternatives across multiple explicit criteria and incorporates judgments about the trade-offs among them.
- Multi-Objective OptimisationConceptMOO, Pareto Optimisation
- An optimisation approach used when a decision involves competing objectives, such as maximising benefit while minimising cost, producing a set of trade-off solutions.
P
- Pareto FrontierConceptPareto Front, Optimal Trade-Off Curve
- The set of feasible options that are not dominated by another option that is at least as good on every specified objective and strictly better on at least one.
R
- ROC CurveConceptReceiver Operating Characteristic Curve, ROC Analysis
- A graph depicting the trade-off between a test's true positive rate and false positive rate across a full range of decision thresholds.
T
- Time Trade-OffConceptTTO, Life-Year Trade-Off
- A health state valuation method asking how many years in full health a respondent would consider equal to a longer period in an impaired state.
- Trade-offTermTradeoff, Competing-Objective Balance
- A situation in which achieving more of one objective requires accepting less of another, such as extra health benefit only at extra cost.
- Trade-Off AnalysisTermTradeoff Analysis, Trade-Off Assessment
- A systematic examination of how competing objectives, such as cost and health benefit, are balanced against one another in a given decision.