Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement

Area of Science:

• Health economics
• Medical research reporting
• Publication guidelines

Background:

• Reporting economic evaluations of health interventions presents significant challenges.
• Existing guidelines require consolidation and user-friendly updates.
• Medical editors identified a need for improved reporting standards.

Purpose of the Study:

• To consolidate and update previous health economic evaluation guidelines.
• To provide current, useful reporting guidance for researchers and editors.
• To enhance the quality of health economic evaluation reporting.

Main Methods:

• Systematic review to identify candidate reporting items.
• Modified Delphi panel with diverse stakeholder representation (academia, industry, government, editorial).
• Development of a 24-item checklist based on 44 candidate items.

Main Results:

• A user-friendly, 24-item checklist (CHEERS statement) was developed.
• Recommendations for reporting health economic evaluations are provided.
• The CHEERS statement is co-published across multiple journals for broad dissemination.

Conclusions:

• The CHEERS statement aims to improve reporting standards for health economic evaluations.
• Enhanced reporting is expected to lead to better-informed health decisions.
• The checklist will be reviewed for updates in five years.