The recognition that health economists need to understand the meaning of data if they are to adequately understand research findings which challenge conventional economic theory has led to the growth of qualitative modes of enquiry in health economics. The use of qualitative methods of exploration and description alongside quantitative techniques gives rise to a number of epistemological, ontol...

PharmacoEconomic News Special Issue ¥ June 1999 CO N F E R E N C E H I G H L I G H T S The Evidence for Evidence Getting Value for Money in Economic Evaluations of Health and Health Care O n April 29-30, 1999, the Institute of Health Economics hosted its first conference, The Evidence for Evidence – Getting Value for Money in Economic Evaluations of Health and Health Care. The conference was or...

This article addresses the increasing influence of economic rationalities in global health over the past 30 years by examining the genealogy of one economic strategy - taxation - that has become central to international anti-smoking initiatives in the global South. It argues that this genealogy sits uncomfortably with the usual story about economics and global health, which reduces the economis...

BACKGROUND The application of conjoint analysis (including discrete-choice experiments and other multiattribute stated-preference methods) in health has increased rapidly over the past decade. A wider acceptance of these methods is limited by an absence of consensus-based methodological standards. OBJECTIVE The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Good Res...

1329 surgical pathology of St Thomas's Hospital (now the department of histopathology) for their willing support, collaboration, and help with this scheme and to the deans and staff of the medical school for their encouragement.

The design and performance of health systems are now at the centre of the international health agenda. This month’s special section of the Bulletin and The World Health Report 2000 are both devoted to health systems. The next decade will witness a lively debate on these issues, increasingly fuelled by multicountry evidence and analysis. Historically, the World Health Organization has not been h...

In this paper we explore the implications of normative principles for the evaluation of population health. We formalize those principles as axioms for social preferences over distributions of health for a given population. We single out several focal population health evaluation functions, which represent social preferences, as a result of combinations of those axioms. Our results provide new r...