What are economic costs and when should they be used in health economic studies?

Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation

Review

Anna Vassall¹  Frank G. Sandmann²  Mark Jit³  Stacey Orangi⁴  Yot Teerawattananon⁵  Hugo C. Turner⁶  Laura E. Downey⁷ 

[1] Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 15-17 Tavistock Place, WC1H 9SH, London, UK;Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK;European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Stockholm, Sweden;Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK;School of Public Health, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China;Health Economics Research Unit, KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme, Nairobi, Kenya;Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP), Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand;Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore;MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK;The George Institute for Global Health, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK;The George Institute for Global Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia;

关键词: Economic costs;    Opportunity costs;    Decision making;    Definition;    Rationale;    Health economics;    Economic evaluations;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12962-023-00436-w

 received in 2022-11-08, accepted in 2023-03-18,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Economic analyses of healthcare interventions are an important consideration in evidence-based policymaking. A key component of such analyses is the costs of interventions, for which most are familiar with using budgets and expenditures. However, economic theory states that the true value of a good/service is the value of the next best alternative forgone as a result of using the resource and therefore observed prices or charges do not necessarily reflect the true economic value of resources. To address this, economic costs are a fundamental concept within (health) economics. Crucially, they are intended to reflect the resources’ opportunity costs (the forgone opportunity to use those resources for another purpose) and they are based on the value of the resource's next-best alternative use that has been forgone. This is a broader conceptualization of a resource’s value than its financial cost and recognizes that resources can have a value that may not be fully captured by their market price and that by using a resource it makes it unavailable for productive use elsewhere. Importantly, economic costs are preferred over financial costs for any health economic analyses aimed at informing decisions regarding the optimum allocation of the limited/competing resources available for healthcare (such as health economic evaluations), and they are also important when considering the replicability and sustainability of healthcare interventions. However, despite this, economic costs and the reasons why they are used is an area that can be misunderstood by professionals without an economic background. In this paper, we outline to a broader audience the principles behind economic costs and when and why they should be used within health economic analyses. We highlight that the difference between financial and economic costs and what adjustments are needed within cost calculations will be influenced by the context of the study, the perspective, and the objective.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

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