PUBPOL 5870 - Economic Evaluations in Health Care

Spring. 3 credits. Student option grading.

Recommended prerequisite: ECON 1110 or equivalent,

or equivalent. Enrollment limited to: graduate students. Co-meets with PUBPOL 3870.

D. Kenkel.

This course covers economic evaluation methods used for decisions in the health care sector and health policy. Economic evaluations include cost analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and cost-utility analysis. The course discusses how to measure opportunity costs, monetary benefits, and health outcomes such as quality-adjusted life years. Actual economic evaluations of pharmaceuticals, health care and public health interventions, and health and safety policy are reviewed and critiqued.

Outcome 1: Identify differences between economic evaluation methods and analyze when it is appropriate to use cost-analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis or cost-utility analysis.

Outcome 2: Identify and evaluate the opportunity costs associated with the resources used as the result of health policies and health care interventions.

Outcome 3: Calculate health gains in terms of natural units such as life years gained and utility-based measures such as quality-adjusted life years gained.

Outcome 4: Analyze the roles of time discounting and uncertainty in economic evaluations of health.