28 November – 5 December 2024 • Marco Biagi Foundation
Cycle of seminars organised as part of the PhD Course in Labour, Development and Innovation, Unimore – Marco Biagi Foundation
Visiting professor: Prof. Francesco Manca
Research Associate,
Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment,
University of Glasgow, UK
November 28 from 14.00 to 16.00 – Room laboratorio informatica 2 DEMB
SEMINAR 1 – General concepts of Health Economics and HTA: a general overview
This first lecture will provide an introduction to HTA. Main topics that will be covered:
– Healthcare expenditure, general overview from the UK and other countries
– Need for decision Rules
– Concepts of QALY and DALY
– PICO
– Concepts of ICER and Threshold
– Case studies
– Exercise
December 3, from 14.30 to 17.30 – Room 32
SEMINAR 2 –Principles of Economic Evaluation: Introduction to Modelling, decision trees and Markov models
Economic evaluation considers the costs of providing a healthcare intervention (e.g., a new therapy, screening procedure, or drug) relative to its benefits. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are considered the highest level of evidence. Therefore, economic evaluation based on clinical RCTs means providing the highest economic evidence for a specific healthcare intervention. However, whenever RCTs are not a feasible option, decision models are methods useful to synthesize information based on observational studies. In this session, the main technical steps and issues to build an economic evaluation are discussed and then tools on how to build a decision analytical model are provided. Decision trees will be treated in depth for short term models and will be mentioned the use of them for the evaluation of diagnostics. A case study using cost-effectiveness of different screening strategies for HCV combining decision trees and Markov models will be shown. The session will focus on concepts and to provide basic tools to build a decision model.
December 4, from 9.00 to 13.00 – Room 32
SEMINAR 3 – Summary of Decision modelling sessions.
Common econometric tools for the evaluation of public health interventions
This session will end Markov models and discuss/conclude some reasoning of the previous lectures on decision modelling and HTA discussing the exercise/discussion if not done previously.
A separate session will present how econometric tools for policy evaluation are also commonly used in the public health field when RCTs are not feasible. Case studies of evaluation of policies such as Minimum Unit pricing in Scotland and comparative effectiveness of drugs will be shown.
The final part of this session will also introduce the Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment (HEHTA) Department at the University of Glasgow, it will cover HEHTA expertise, research, grants, teaching activities as well as key contacts.
Student reception hours
– Wednesday 4 December: from 13.30 to 15.00
– Thursday 5 December: from 12.30 to 14.00
The cycle of seminars will be taught in Italian
Coordinator of the cycle of seminars
Marcello Morciano, Full Professor of Economic Policy,
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, “Marco Biagi” Department of Economics