Health Economics

Question 1

Definition of economics

Answer 1

The study of how we end up choosing to use scarce productive resources that could have alternative uses, in order to produce various commodities and distribute them for use among society. It analyses the costs and benefits of improving patterns of resource allocation

Question 2

Opportunity cost

Answer 2

Refers to the value or benefit that you could have had if you had made a different choice

Question 3

Efficiency

Answer 3

Optimising resource allocation to streamline a health system (best outcomes for lowest cost)

Question 4

Feasibility

Answer 4

The capability of introducing a new programme

Question 5

Equity

Answer 5

Fairness of resource distribution

Question 6

Economic evaluation

Answer 6

An analysis that uses a comparison which includes both costs and consequences of different choices

Question 7

Uses for economic evaluation

Answer 7

Improve decisions around allocation of resources
Identify worthwhile but neglected opportunities
Identify ways to redirect resources to achieve more
Weighing up costs vs benefits

Question 8

Cost effectiveness analysis

Answer 8

Outcomes: natural units, same for all comparators
Costs: monetary units

Question 9

Cost utility analysis

Answer 9

Outcomes: DALY’s or QALY’s
Costs: monetary units

Question 10

Cost benefit analysis

Answer 10

Outcomes: monetary units
Costs: monetary units

Question 11

QALY’s

Answer 11

Calculated by estimating the total life-years gained from a treatment, by weighting each year with a quality of life score
This includes the quantity and quality of life lived

Question 12

DALY’s

Answer 12

A measure of burden of disease, expressed as the number of years lost due to ill health, disability or death
Number of healthy years lost by an individual - combines morbidity and mortality

Question 13

Incremental cost-effectiveness

Answer 13

ICER = (cost1-cost2)/(benefit1-benefit2)

Question 14

Revenue collection in the Kutzin framework

Answer 14

Process by which the health system receives money from households and organisations

Question 15

Pooling in the Kutzin framework

Answer 15

Accumulation and management of revenues in a way so as to ensure the risk of having to pay for health care is borne by all members of the pool and not by each contributor individually

Question 16

Purchasing in the Kutzin framework

Answer 16

Process by which pooled funds are paid to providers in order to deliver services

Question 17

Provision in the Kutzin framework

Answer 17

The manner in which health services are provided, relative to the need of the population

Question 18

Universal coverage

Answer 18

Provide all people with access to needed health services of sufficient quality to be effective and to ensure that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship

Question 19

What are the three types of economic evaluation?

Answer 19

Cost-effectiveness analysis
Cost utility analysis
Cost benefit analysis