Methodological concerns with economic evaluations of meningococcal vaccines

The evolution of meningococcal vaccines illustrates nicely the incremental technological process that is common to much medical innovation and particularly appropriate to economic analysis. However, the economic evaluation of vaccines is complicated by several features unique to vaccines, including the possibility of indirect (herd immunity) benefits and the shear breadth of vaccination strategies available to decision makers. As with the vaccines themselves, the modelling approaches applied to the economic evaluation of meningococcal vaccines have evolved to become increasingly complex. Despite such innovation, concerns remain about the quality of economic studies of meningococcal vaccines. This article reviews evaluations of meningococcal vaccine strategies in developed countries and provides recommendations for future work in this area. Four potentially problematic areas in the existing literature are identified - indirect costs, herd immunity, quality of life and comparison programmes - and approaches to these issues are discussed. Recommendations for reporting a 'minimum analysis profile' case are also made. Although comparisons across studies are difficult at best, recent work shows that incorporating the indirect benefits and costs of vaccination substantially improves cost effectiveness.