Health Economic Evaluations
Course content
The course will give students an introduction to the principles of economic evaluations in health care. Topics include:
- Foundations for economic evaluation
- Critical assessment of clinical trials
- Cost measurement
- Budget impact and cost-of-illness
- Cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility
- Outcome and preference measurement
- Trial-based economic evaluations and decision-analytic modelling
- How to present results and how to handle uncertainty
- Value of information analysis
- Systematic reviews and meta-analyses
- Introduction to modelling methods in MS Excel
- Prioritization in the Danish health care sector
MSc programme in Economics – elective course
The course is open to:
- Exchange and Guest students from abroad
- Credit students from Danish Universities
- Open University students
Fuldtidsstuderende der er indskrevet på det Samfundsfaglige fakultet, KU.
- Master Programmes in Anthropology
- Master Programmes in Global Development
- Master Programme in Political Science and Social Science
- Master Programme in Social Data Science
- Master Programmes in Psychology
Enrolled students register the course through the Selfservice. Please contact the study administration at each programme for questions regarding registration.
After completing the course the student is expected to be able to:
Knowledge:
- Explain the difference between welfarist and extra-welfarist approaches to health economic evaluations.
- Explain differences between cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses.
- Identify biases in clinical trial design and reporting.
- Account for the methods and value of meta-analyses.
- Define concepts related to preference measurement (including time trade-off and standard gamble) as well as common instruments (including EQ-5D).
- Define the concepts of budget impact analysis and value of information analysis and their usefulness in healthcare decision-making.
- Account for the difference between trial-based evaluations and decision-analytic models and the differences between alternative decision-analytic models including decision trees and Markov models.
- Discuss the concepts of deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analysis and their ability to assess robustness of results.
Skills:
- Discuss and assess the documented efficacy of a healthcare intervention.
- Analyze cost-effectiveness analyses to determine the drivers of conclusions and assess their validity.
Competences:
- Determine if a particular healthcare intervention can be said to be cost effective or not by using the published literature.
- Critically and independently assess health economic evaluations as published in the scientific literature.
- Implement proper methods for analyzing cost-effectiveness of a new healthcare intervention.
Lectures. A number of these will include exercises, in which students will work individually or in groups getting hands-on experience with modelling.
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Michael F. Drummond, Mark J. Sculpher, Karl Claxton, Greg L. Stoddart, and George W. Torrance: Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes, 4th edition, Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN 9780199665884 ( link),
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Supplemented by a number of scientific articles.
There are no recommended academic prerequisites other than the study entry requirements.
Schedule:
3-4 hours lectures every week from week 6 to 17.
From week 17 there will be some individual guidance for writing the
project.
for enrolled students: Rules etc at Master(UK) and Master(DK)
When registered you will be signed up for exam.
- Full-degree students – sign up at Selfservice on KUnet
- Exchange and guest students from abroad – sign up through Mobility Online and Selfservice- read more through this website.
- Credit students from Danish universities - sign up through this website.
- Open University students - sign up through this website.
The dates for the exams are found here Exams – Faculty of Social Sciences - University of Copenhagen (ku.dk)
Please note that it is your own responsibility to check for overlapping exam dates.
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
-
Home assignment, 3 weeks
- Type of assessment details
- The exam is a project, individual or in groups
Please be aware that:
• The project can be written individually or in groups of three students.
• The plagiarism rules and the rules for co-writing assignemnts must be complied.
• The students are allowed to discuss the project orally with other students at the course.
• The writing process of the project begins with handing in a project description, that must be approved. Thereafter the student writes the project paper.
• The project description and the project paper must be written in English. - Examination prerequisites
-
There are no requirements during the course that the student has to fulfill to be able to sit the exam.
- Aid
- All aids allowed
Use of AI tools is permitted. You must explain how you have used the tools. When text is solely or mainly generated by an AI tool, the tool used must be quoted as a source.
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
- Exam period
-
Exam information:
The examination date can be found in the exam schedule here
More information is available in Digital Exam from the middle of the semester.
More information about examination, rules, aids etc. at Master(UK) and Master(DK).
- Re-exam
-
Same as the ordinary exam.
Reexam information:
The submission date can be found in the reexam schedule here
More information in Digital Exam in August.
More information about examination, rules, aids etc. at Master(UK), Master(DK)
Criteria for exam assessment
Students are assessed on the extent to which they master the learning outcome for the course.
In order to obtain the top grade “12”, the student must with no or only a few minor weaknesses be able to demonstrate an excellent performance displaying a high level of command of all aspects of the relevant material and can make use of the knowledge, skills and competencies listed in the learning outcomes.
In order to obtain the passing grade “02”, the student must in a satisfactory way be able to demonstrate a minimal acceptable level of the knowledge, skills and competencies listed in the learning outcomes.
Single subject courses (day)
- Category
- Hours
- Lectures
- 40
- Preparation
- 136
- Project work
- 30
- English
- 206
Kursusinformation
- Language
- English
- Course number
- AØKK08210U
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Programme level
- Full Degree Master
- Duration
-
1 semester
- Placement
- Spring
- Price
-
Information about admission and tuition fee: Master and Exchange Programme, credit students and guest students (Open University)
- Studyboard
- Department of Economics, Study Council
Contracting department
- Department of Economics
- Department of Anthropology
- Department of Psychology
- Department of Political Science
- Social Data Science
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Course Coordinators
- Christian Graves Beck (3-7377725075737f7e3e7b853e747b)
- Uffe Jon Ploug (6-796a6a6974704469677372326f7932686f)
Teacher
See ‘Course Coordinators’
Er du BA- eller KA-studerende?
Kursusinformation for indskrevne studerende