Health economics, made useful.
Explore clear, practical explanations of health-economic methods, HTA concepts, diagnostic evidence, and healthcare decision-making.
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29 articles
HTA concepts
Budget impact analysis
Budget Impact Analysis (BIA) estimates the financial consequences of adopting a new healthcare intervention within a specific budget context over a defined time horizon.
Cost effectiveness analysis
Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is a method used to compare the costs and health outcomes of two or more healthcare interventions.
Decision tree
A decision tree is a structured modelling framework used to represent and analyse a sequence of clinical decisions, events, and outcomes under uncertainty.
Diagnostic threshold
A diagnostic threshold is the value of a clinical test result that determines whether a patient is classified as having a disease or not.
Discounting
Discounting is a method used in health economic evaluation to convert future costs and health outcomes into present values.
Health Economics
Health economics is the study of how healthcare resources are used to improve health. It combines ideas from economics, medicine, public health, and statistics to evaluate how healthcare interventions create value.
Health state
A health state is a structured description of a person’s health at a specific point in time. It captures how a person is functioning across relevant dimensions of health, rather than relying on a single clinical label or diagnosis.
Health Technology Assessment
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary process used to evaluate the clinical, economic, organisational, social, and ethical impact of a healthcare technology.
Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio
The Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratio (ICER) is a metric used in health economics to compare the additional cost and additional health benefit of one intervention relative to another.
Individual patient-level simulation model
An individual patient-level simulation model (often called a microsimulation model) is a modelling approach in which outcomes are simulated separately for each individual in a virtual population.
Markov model
A Markov model is a mathematical modelling framework used to simulate disease progression over time by moving individuals between a set of defined health states.
Negative predictive value
A negative predictive value, usually shortened to NPV, measures how often a negative test result is actually correct.
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative that is given up when a decision is made.
Patient-reported outcome measures
Patient-Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are standardized questionnaires used to measure a patient’s health status, symptoms, functioning, and quality of life directly from the patient’s perspective.
Positive predictive value
A positive predictive value, usually shortened to PPV, measures how often a positive test result is actually correct.
QALY
A quality-adjusted life year (QALY), is a health economics measure that combines length of life and quality of life into a single outcome.
Quality of life
Quality of life (QoL) is a broad concept used to describe how a person experiences their overall well-being in daily life. It goes beyond physical health and includes physical, mental, and social dimensions of functioning and satisfaction.
Receiver operating characteristic curves
A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, usually shortened to ROC curve, is a graph that shows how well a test or prediction model distinguishes between two outcomes.
Return on investment
Return on Investment (ROI) is a financial measure that evaluates how much value or benefit is generated relative to the cost of an investment.
Sensitivity
Sensitivity is a measure of how well a diagnostic test correctly identifies people who have a disease. It describes a test's ability to produce true positive results while minimizing false negative results.
Sensitivity analysis
Sensitivity analysis is a method used in health economic evaluation to test how robust results are to changes in model inputs or assumptions.
Simulation modelling
Simulation modelling is a quantitative method used to represent and analyse complex healthcare systems by recreating patient pathways, disease progression, and resource use over time.
Skewness factor
The skewness factor describes the asymmetry of a distribution around its mean. In health economics and statistics, it is used to understand whether values are evenly distributed or concentrated toward one side.
Specificity
Specificity is a measure of how well a diagnostic test correctly identifies people who do not have a disease. It describes a test's ability to produce true negative results while minimizing false positive results.
Threshold analysis
Threshold analysis is a method in health economic evaluation used to identify the critical value of a parameter at which a decision changes.
Uncertainty analysis
Uncertainty analysis is a set of methods used to assess how uncertainty in model inputs, assumptions, and structure affects the results of a health economic evaluation.
Utility
Utility is a numerical value used to represent the quality of a health state. It is a core concept in health economics and is used to quantify health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in a way that can be combined with time.
Willingness-to-accept
Willingness to Accept (WTA) is a concept in health economics and decision theory that describes the minimum amount of compensation required for an individual or decision-maker to accept a loss in health or a reduction in quality of life.
Willingness-to-pay
Willingness to Pay (WTP) is a threshold concept in health economics that defines the maximum amount a decision-maker is willing to pay for one additional unit of health benefit.
13 articles
Disease epidemiology
Age distribution
Age distribution describes how ages are spread across a population.
Area under the curve
An area under the curve, usually shortened to AUC, is a measure of how well a test or prediction model can distinguish between two outcomes.
Confounding
Confounding is a type of bias that occurs when the relationship between an exposure or treatment and an outcome is influenced by another factor that is associated with both.
False negative
A false negative is a result from a test, system, or model that incorrectly indicates the absence of a condition when that condition is actually present.
False positive
A false positive is a diagnostic test result that incorrectly indicates that something is present when it is actually not.
Incidence
Incidence is a measure of the occurrence of new cases of a disease or condition in a population over a specified period of time.
Prevalence
Prevalence is a measure of how common a disease or condition is in a defined population at a specific time or over a specified period.
Real-world evidence
Real-World Evidence (RWE) is clinical evidence generated from the analysis of data collected during routine healthcare practice.
Risk distribution
Risk distribution describes how the probability of a health event is spread across individuals or subgroups within a population.
True negative
A true negative (TN) is a diagnostic test result that correctly identifies a person who does not have a disease or condition.
True positive
A true positive (TP) is a diagnostic test result that correctly identifies a person who has a disease or condition.
Type I error
A Type I error occurs when a test or statistical analysis incorrectly detects an effect or condition that does not actually exist.
Type II error
A Type II error occurs when a test or statistical analysis fails to detect a true effect or condition that actually exists.