Economic evaluation of health care interventions: a review of alternative methods.

This study analyzes a number of economic evaluation techniques that can be used by the economist in helping decision-makers make choices about the allocation of scarce resources in health care and the organization of health interventions. The evaluation techniques discussed are cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, multi-attribute problem analysis, linear programming and econometric modelling. The main purpose of this paper is to study the merits of the different techniques and to point at certain difficulties in their application.