Edited by Dr. Wendy Ungar
Guidelines for conducting health economic evaluations have become increasingly standardized, however they don't address the unique concerns of the paediatric population. The challenges of measuring costs and consequences in children, from neonate to late adolescence, are numerous and complex.
With the growing acceptance of economic evidence to guide decisions in health systems facing economic constraints, it is imperative that these challenges be considered so that this population is not left out of evidence-based decisions. The time has come for a textbook to address economic evaluation
in child health.
This book is divided into three sections: Methods, Applications, and Using evidence for decision-making, with chapters contributed by international experts. The Methods section presents detailed discussions of measuring lifetime costs and consequences, capturing
productivity losses, obtaining unbiased self- and proxy reports, incorporating externalities, choosing valid outcome measures, assessing utility, and designing studies using value of information. The Applications section reviews economic evidence in common childhood conditions and areas of
investigation, including newborn screening, harm prevention, mental health services, brain injury, asthma, and immunization. The final section explores the use of economic evidence in decision-making, and includes a description of the WHO-CHOICE approach, the role of clinical research, how to value
health gains by children, and the emerging field of health technology assessment. In addition to an emphasis on methods, a deliberate effort was made to include issues relevant to developing countries, where the burden of childhood disease is greatest, and for whom high quality economic evidence is
critical.
Part I: Methods
1. Wendy J. Ungar & Andreas Gerber: The uniqueness of child health and challenges to measuring costs and consequences
2. Katherine B. Bevans & Christopher B. Forrest: The reliability and validity of children's and adolescents' self-reported health
3. Werner B.F.
Brouwer, N. Job A. van Exel & J. Mick Tilford: Incorporating caregiver and family effects in economic evaluations of child health
4. Lillian Sung, Stavros Petrou & Wendy J. Ungar: Measurement of health utilities in children
5. Andrew R Willan: The use of value of information methods in the
design and evaluation of clinical trials
Part II: Applications
6. Scott D. Grosse: Economic evaluations of newborn screening
7. Kim Dalziel & Leonie Segal: Economic evaluation in child protection: what are the special challenges? Part 1. Economic evaluation in child
protection
E. Michael Foster: Economic evaluation in child protection: what are the special challenges? Part 2. Economic evaluation in child welfare
Y. Ingrid Goh, Gideon Koren & Wendy J. Ungar: Economic evaluation in child protection: what are the special challenges? Part 3. Economic
evaluation in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
8. Sarah Byford: Obstacles to the economic evaluation of specialist child and adolescent mental health services
9. J. Mick Tilford & Ali I. Raja: Is more aggressive treatment of pediatric traumatic brain injury worth it?
10. Jonathan D.
Campbell & Sean D. Sullivan: Economic evaluations in the management of paediatric asthma
11. Damian G Walker, Philippe Beutels & Raymond Hutubessy: Economic evaluation of childhood vaccines
12. Donald S. Shepard & Jose A. Suaya: Economic evaluation of dengue prevention
Part III: Using
Evidence for Decision-Making
13. Tessa Tan-Torres Edejer, Moses Aikins, Robert Black, Lara Wolfson, Raymond Hutubessy & David B. Evans: Economic evaluations of interventions for children in the developing world: the WHO-CHOICE approach
14. Gillian Currie, Sarah Curtis & Terry Klassen:
Evidence-based decision-making in child health: the role of clinical research and economic evaluation
15. Stavros Petrou: Should health gains by children be given the same value as health gains by adults in an economic evaluation framework?
16. Vania Costa & Wendy J. Ungar: Health technology
assessment in child health
There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.
Wendy Ungar MSc, PhD is a Senior Scientist in Child Health Evaluative Sciences at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, an Associate Professor in Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, and an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative
Sciences, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Ungar is the University of Toronto Program Director for the International Masters in Health Technology Assessment & Management (Ulysses program) and has held a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator career award. Dr. Ungar leads a program of research
in the application of health economic methods to the paediatric population and also investigates the relationship between policies governing access to prescription medicines and health outcomes in children. Dr. Ungar and her research team created and maintain the PEDE database
(http://pede.ccb.sickkids.ca/pede/), a popular on-line health technology assessment tool for examining health economic evidence in children.
Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes - Michael F. Drummond, Mark J. Sculpher, George Torrance, Bernard O'Brien and Greg Stoddart
