What is cost‐effectiveness analysis?

Abstract

The treatment of mild‐tomoderate hypertension is used to illustrate the role of cost‐effectiveness analysis in assessing the economic efficiency of pharmacological lnterventlons, The reasons why it is impC)rtaot to consider economic efficiency are discussed, after which the major issues involved in conducting a cost‐effectiveness analysis are outlined. Attention is focused on the relative merits of measuring benefits in terms of intermediate and final outcome indicators, and the concept of marginal cost‐effectiveness analysis is introduced. Although some difficulties arise, costeffectiveness analysis is a potentially powerful guide for decisions about the allocation of scarce resources.