Article showed how not to read economic evaluations

BMJ 1998;316:939 ( 21 March )

Letters

Article showed how not to read economic evaluations

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Although parts of Greenhalgh's paper on economic analyses were helpful to our non-economist colleagues, many partsshowed a poor understanding of the subject and the paper is likelyto be of little help in assessing the value of studies.¹ Muchof the paper was devoted to cost-utility analysis (where thiswas occasionally confused with cost-benefit analysis and Greenhalghshowed an ignorance of the methods of utility estimation). Theshort description of cost-consequences analysis seemed to confuseit with cost-effectiveness analysis. There were also importanterrors in some of the paragraphs explaining "Ten questions toask about an economic analysis."

Question 2, on the perspective of economic evaluations. This paragraph missed the point, referring to interest groups andfunding rather than objective viewpoints, which should be statedin the paper (for example, the NHS, patient, or society).

Question 3, on the clinical effectiveness of the interventions. The "gold standard" economic . . . [Full text of this article]