Coursework
Three-course sequence: New Sequence In Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Decision Analysis And Health Technology Assessment
Provides training to perform sophisticated analyses in health technology assessment with an emphasis on decision analysis (DA) and cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA).
PPOL 38200/HSTD 37100: Cost Effectiveness Analysis
Offered: Fall Quarter
Instructor: Willard G. Manning, Ph.D.
Cost Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) and Cost Utility Analysis (CUA) are widely used for the economic evaluation of health and medical treatments. Emphasis will be on understanding the basic foundations of CEA/CUA and the implications for the components in the evaluation. The course will address the measurement of health and medical effectiveness, health care and societal costs, and their integration into a formal assessment of alternative treatments. Applications from the literature will be used. By the end of the course, students are expected to be able to critique methods used in published papers. Prerequisite: Some knowledge of microeconomics or consent of instructor.
SSA 456: Decision and Cost-effectiveness Analysis for Policy
Offered: Winter Quarter
Instructors: Harold Pollack, Ph.D., Elbert Huang, M.D., M.P.H. and William Dale, M.D., Ph.D.
This master’s-level course provides students with the basic tools of policy analysis. Students will learn and apply tools of decision analysis in written group assignments and in an accompanying computer lab. Students will also learn and apply concepts of cost-effectiveness, cost-benefit, and cost- utility analysis with social service, medical, and public health applications. Doctoral and master’s students who intend to take "Advanced Applications of Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Health” in the spring are required to complete two additional laboratory assignments. Topics to be covered include: Decision trees for structured policy analysis, the economic value of information, analysis of screening programs for HIV and child maltreatment, sensitivity analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis of life- saving interventions and programs to reduce behavioral risk, valuing quality of life outcomes, ethical issues in cost- benefit analysis, behavioral economics, and analysis of "irrational" risk behaviors. Substantive areas covered include: HIV/substance use prevention, school-based prevention of sexual risk, smoking cessation, and housing policy. In the associated learning lab, students will use computer decision software to build and analyze decision trees in policy-relevant examples. They will conduct 1-way and 2-way sensitivity analysis to explore the impact of key parameters on cost-effectiveness of alternative policies. Students will receive an introduction to dynamic modeling in the context of HIV prevention, cancer screening, and transportation programs. Prerequisite: One prior course in economics.
PP44800: Advanced Applications of Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in Health
Offered: Spring Quarter
Instructors: David Meltzer, M.D., Ph.D., Anirban Basu, Ph.D.
The objective of this advanced graduate course is to prepare highly motivated students to perform cutting edge applications of cost-effectiveness methods to the study of medical and public health interventions. Lectures will review classic theoretical and empirical papers in cost-effectiveness analysis with a major focus on the application of advanced methods to practical problems in medical care and public health. Topics to be covered will include: the theoretical basis of cost-effectiveness analysis in utility theory, utility assessment, Bayesian methods for meta-analysis, probabilistic sensitivity analysis and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves, and value of research methods. PPOL 38200 (Fall) and SSA 456 (Winter) or the consent of the instructors is required. Students should be aware that SSA 456 provides important practical programming experience without which this course will be much more difficult.
