Economic analysis in health care research

There is contemporary widespread acceptance in the medical community of the need to address economic perspective of healthcare, specifically whether the benefits of a proposed or existing medical intervention are sufficient to justify that particular use of scarce health resources. The use of any scarce resources whether manpower, buildings or equipment has an opportunity cost in terms of the benefits foregone by denying those resources to other competing claims. Health economics emphasizes the need to assess formally the implications of choices over the deployment of resources. A number of economic evaluation techniques such as cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis have thus been developed to aid this formal assessment and to help identify the most efficient allocation of resources. The methodological quality and principles of economic analyses studies recently published in the biomedical literature, however, can be further improved. The most common limitations are in the methodology or presentation of cost, incremental analyses, sensitivity analysis and discounting. The ten methodological principles that should be incorporated in studies addressing economic analyses are highlighted. Understanding the methodology of cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis is critical for biomedical researchers, editors, reviewers and readers from developing countries to accurately interpret the results of the growing body of these articles.