Health economics for non-economists

The goal of this book is to make the reader familiar with the principles and methods of health economics evaluations.

Health economics is about making wise investments in health and healthcare. Health economics evaluations are a particular domain of health economics. They help to make choices and to give priority to interventions (for prevention, diagnosis, cure or care) which result in the greatest amount of health per invested unit of money.

The results of health economics evaluations are increasingly published in scientific journals, presented at congresses and used in policy making. This book helps all stakeholders in health and healthcare to understand the methods and interpret the results of these evaluations. After a successful first edition (2008) this second edition provides several recent examples, explains the relationship between health economics evaluations and health technology assessment (HTA), and focusses especially on the pitfalls of health economics evaluations and how to overcome these. Knowledge about economics is not required.