A flexible formula for incorporating distributive concerns into cost-effectiveness analyses: Priority weights.

Area of Science:

• Health economics
• Public health policy
• Decision sciences

Background:

• Cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) are crucial for healthcare investment decisions.
• Existing CEAs often overlook equity concerns, particularly regarding the distribution of lifetime health.
• Current methods primarily focus on health gains, not the distribution of lifetime health, despite its importance for prioritizing interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a systematic approach for including lifetime health equity concerns in CEAs.
• To introduce a novel, flexible priority weight function (PW) that accounts for lifetime health.
• To demonstrate the application of this PW using empirical data.

Main Methods:

• Developed a new priority weight function (PW) with desirable properties: continuity, smoothness, and flexibility.
• The PW formula is PW = α+(t-γ)·C·e-β·(t-γ), where t represents the health measure.
• Estimated PW coefficients using data from a previous study and two distinct approaches.

Main Results:

• The proposed PW allows for the explicit inclusion of lifetime health considerations in CEAs.
• The function's continuity ensures equitable treatment for individuals with similar health statuses.
• Flexibility in shape and outcome measure allows for diverse modeling scenarios.

Conclusions:

• Integrating lifetime health equity into CEAs is essential for equitable resource allocation.
• The developed flexible priority weight function offers a practical tool for addressing these equity concerns.
• This work illustrates a method for estimating such functions from empirical data, enhancing the equity focus of CEAs.