Santatiwongchai Benjarin, Chantarastapornchit Varit, Wilkinson Thomas, Thiboonboon Kittiphong, Rattanavipapong Waranya, Walker Damian G, Chalkidou Kalipso, Teerawattananon Yot
Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program, Nonthaburi, Thailand.
NICE International, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, London, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2015 May 7;10(5):e0123853. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123853. eCollection 2015.
Information generated from economic evaluation is increasingly being used to inform health resource allocation decisions globally, including in low- and middle- income countries. However, a crucial consideration for users of the information at a policy level, e.g. funding agencies, is whether the studies are comparable, provide sufficient detail to inform policy decision making, and incorporate inputs from data sources that are reliable and relevant to the context. This review was conducted to inform a methodological standardisation workstream at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and assesses BMGF-funded cost-per-DALY economic evaluations in four programme areas (malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and vaccines) in terms of variation in methodology, use of evidence, and quality of reporting. The findings suggest that there is room for improvement in the three areas of assessment, and support the case for the introduction of a standardised methodology or reference case by the BMGF. The findings are also instructive for all institutions that fund economic evaluations in LMICs and who have a desire to improve the ability of economic evaluations to inform resource allocation decisions.
经济评估产生的信息越来越多地被用于为全球卫生资源分配决策提供依据，包括在低收入和中等收入国家。然而，在政策层面，例如资助机构，信息使用者的一个关键考虑因素是研究是否具有可比性，是否提供足够详细的信息以支持政策决策，以及是否纳入了来自可靠且与背景相关的数据源的投入。本次综述旨在为比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会（BMGF）的一项方法标准化工作提供参考，并从方法差异、证据使用和报告质量方面评估BMGF资助的四个项目领域（疟疾、结核病、艾滋病毒/艾滋病和疫苗）中每获得一个伤残调整生命年的成本的经济评估。研究结果表明，在这三个评估领域仍有改进空间，并支持BMGF引入标准化方法或参考案例的理由。这些发现对于所有在低收入和中等收入国家资助经济评估且希望提高经济评估为资源分配决策提供依据能力的机构也具有指导意义。
