CURRENT STATUS OF ECONOMIC APPRAISAL OF HEALTH TECHNOLOGY IN THE EUROPEAN-COMMUNITY - REPORT OF THE NETWORK

The use of economic evaluation to assess the costs and consequences of health care technologies has steadily increased in recent years. Howe ver, little is known about the influence economic studies have on heal th care decision makers or policy at local and national level. This pa per reports the results of a survey of economic evaluations in EC coun tries to identify the impact of the results on decision and policy mak ing in health care. Health service researchers in 10 EC countries were identified and asked to participate in the survey. The researchers we re asked to locate economic evaluations in their country and complete a standardised questionnaire for each study. The criteria for inclusio n in the survey were first, the studies should have been started or re ported since 1987, second, the evaluations should include a comparison of the cost and consequences of the technologies assessed and finally , the appraisals should include a comparison of alternative health car e technologies or programmes. A total of 66 studies which met the surv ey criteria were reported. Of these, 27% were thought to have influenc ed health care decision makers or policy. The results suggested that m ethod of dissemination, source of funding and purpose of the study may be important determinants of whether an economic evaluation will be u sed in health care policy or decision making. The results of the surve y suggest that economic evaluation currently has a relatively low impa ct on health care policy or decision making. If researchers wish to in crease the influence of economic evaluation in the policy process more attention needs to be paid to (i) methods of communicating the result s to health care decision and policy makers, and (ii) the policy makin g framework and processes.