Letters
Importance of health economics must be recognised when trials are designed
BMJ 1999; 318 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.318.7199.1696a (Published 19 June 1999) Cite this as: BMJ 1999;318:1696
- Alan Haycox, Senior lecturer in health economics (A.R.Haycox@liverpool.ac.uk),
- Adrian Bagust, Senior research fellow,
- Tom Walley, Director
- Prescribing Research Group, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Liverpool
EDITOR—Barbert and Thompson's study is welcome if it leads trial designers to recognise health economics as more than a (non-essential) afterthought to their trial.1 The points that the authors make would benefit from a more complete understanding of the nature of economic data and the context in which economic analyses are undertaken.2
Clinical outcomes in trials tend to be uni-dimensional and unambiguous (such as survival or response to treatment), whereas economic data are essentially multidimensional. Health care embraces the use of …
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