QALYs are increasingly being utilized as a health outcome measure to calculate the benefits of new treatments and interventions within cost-utility analyses for economic evaluation. Cost-utility analyses of adolescent-specific treatment programmes are scant in comparison with those reported upon...

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an important public health problem in European countries. AF is associated with increased morbidity and mortality, e.g. from heart failure and thromboembolic events. Little data have previously been presented regarding the costs of treatment in patients...

Introduction: Streptococcus pneumoniae (Sp.) is a leading cause of paediatric bacterial meningitis, pneumonia and acute otitis media, as is non-typable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) for acute otitis media. In 2008, a 7-valent conjugated pneumococcal vaccine (PCV7) was included in the New Zealand...

An orphan disease is a disease with a very low prevalence. Although there are 5000-7000 orphan diseases, only 50 orphan drugs (i.e. drugs developed to treat orphan diseases) were marketed in the EU by the end of 2008. In 2000, the EU implemented policies specifically designed to stimulate the...

Background: In Sweden, risperidone long-acting injectable (RLAI) is generally used in a population of schizophrenia patients who are at a high risk of being non-compliant. However, RLAI might also be suitable for use in the general schizophrenia population. Objectives: To analyse the clinical...

Background: Orphan drugs are indicated for the treatment of rare diseases which, in the EU, are defined as those with a prevalence of 5 per 10 000 inhabitants. Characteristically, these diseases negatively affect health-related quality of life and may be life threatening. The EU has passed...

Background: Only a limited number of studies have specifically sought to analyse and try to understand sex differences in willingness to pay (WTP). Abstract: Objective: To identify the role of sex in determining monetary values placed upon improvements in maternal health in Burkina Faso, West...

Citizen preferences surrounding desirable health system characteristics should be considered when undertaking health system reform. The objective of this study was to pilot test a discrete-choice instrument designed to elicit preference weights surrounding health system attributes. A...

To inform assessments of the quality of cancer care, we describe analytical approaches to characterizing trends in diffusion of chemotherapy drugs subsequent to their US FDA approval. The economics and medical literature provide two distinct sets of empirical methods for investigating diffusion...