Designing economic evaluations to facilitate optimal decisions: the need to avoid bias

Abstract

Karen M Lee,1,3 Kathryn Coyle,2 Doug Coyle2,31Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), Ottawa, ON, Canada; 2Health Economics Research Group, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK; 3School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, CanadaGuertin et al1 argue in their article “Bias within economic evaluations” that if researchersfail to incorporate the future availability of generics entrants for new patented drugs, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) will be overestimated.1 Before addressing the validity of this argument, it is first worthwhile to consider the nature of both bias and economic evaluation.Read the original paper by Guertin et al 

Keywords

• health economics
• cost and cost analysis
• bias