Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot. If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch.
Opportunity cost neglect in public policy. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Published 10th January 2020
Opportunity cost is a key concept in economics, and health economics is no exception. We all agree that policy-makers should consider the opportunity cost alongside the benefits of the various policy options. The question is… do they? This fascinating paper by Emil Persson and Gustav Tinghög suggests that they may not.
The paper reports two studies: one in the general population, and the other in a sample of experts on priority setting in health. In both studies, the participants were asked to choose between making a purchase or not, and were randomised to choices with and without a reminder about the opportunity cost. The reminder consisted of the “no” option having the comment “saving the money for other purchases“. There were choices about private consumption (e.g. buying a new mobile phone) and health care policy (e.g. funding a new cancer screening programme).
In the study in the general population, the participants were 6% less likely to invest in public policies if they were reminded of the opportunity cost. There was no effect in private consumption decisions. In the study with experts on health care priority setting, the participants were 10% less likely to invest in a health programme when reminded about opportunity costs, although the result was “marginally significant“. There was a numerical difference of -6% regarding private consumption, but non-significant. The authors concluded that both lay people and experts neglect opportunity cost in public policy but much less so in their own private consumption decisions.
It struck me that this effect is driven by quite a small difference between the scenarios – simply stating that choosing to reject the policy means that the money will be saved for future purchases. I wonder about how this information affects the decision. After all, the scenarios only quantify the costs of the policy, without information about the benefits or the opportunity cost. For example, the benefits of the cancer screening programme were that “cancer treatment will be more effective, lives will be saved and human suffering will be avoided” and the cost was 48 million SEK per year. Whether this policy is good or bad value for money all depends on how much suffering it avoids and how much would be avoided by investing the money in something else. It would be interesting to have coupled the survey with interviews to understand how the participants interpreted the information and their decision making process.
On a wider note, this paper agrees with health economists’ anecdotal experience that policy-makers find it hard to think about opportunity cost. This is not helped by settings where they hear about the experience of people who would benefit from a positive recommendation and from doctors who would like to have the new drug in their medical arsenal, but not much about the people who will bear the opportunity cost. The message is clear: we need to do better at communicating the opportunity cost of public policies!
Assessment of progression-free survival as a surrogate end point of overall survival in first-line treatment of ovarian cancer. JAMA Network Open [PubMed] Published 10th January 2020
A study about the relationship between progression-free survival and overall survival may seem an odd choice for a health economics journal round-up, but it is actually quite relevant. In cost-effectiveness analysis of new cancer drugs, the trial primary endpoint may be progression-free survival (PFS). Data on overall survival (OS) may be too immature to assess the treatment effect or for extrapolation to the longer term. To predict QALYs and lifetime costs with and without the new drug, the cost-effectiveness model may need to assume a surrogate relationship between PFS and OS. That is, that an effect on PFS is reflected, to some extent, in an effect on OS. The question is, how strong is that surrogate relationship? This study tries to answer this question in advanced ovarian cancer.
Xavier Paoletti and colleagues conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis using individual patient data from 11,029 people who took part in 17 RCTs of first-line therapy in advanced ovarian cancer. They assessed the surrogate relationship at the individual and at the trial-level. The individual-level surrogate relationship refers to the correlation between PFS and OS for the individual patient. As the authors note, this may only reflect that people who have longer life expectancy also take longer to progress. At the trial-level, they looked at the correlation between the hazard ratio (HR) on OS and the HR on PFS. This reflects how much of the effect on OS could be predicted by the effect on PFS. They used the surrogate criteria proposed by the Follicular Lymphoma Analysis of Surrogacy Hypothesis initiative. As this is outside my area of expertise, I won’t comment on the methodology.
One of their results is quite striking: in 16/17 RCTs, the experimental drug did not have HRs for PFS and OS statistically different from the control. This means that there have not been any new drugs with statistically significant benefits! In terms of the surrogate relationship, they found that there is an individual-level association – that is, people who take longer to progress also survive for longer. In contrast, they did not find a surrogate relationship between PFS and OS at the trial-level. Given that the HRs were centred around 1, the poor correlation may be partly due to the lack of variation in HRs rather than a poor surrogate relationship.
Now the challenge remains in cost-effectiveness modelling when OS is immature. Extrapolate OS with high uncertainty? Use a poor surrogate relationship with PFS? Or formal expert elicitation? Hopefully methodologists are looking into this! In the meantime, regulators may wish to think again about licensing drugs with evidence only on PFS.
After 20 years of using economic evaluation, should NICE be considered a methods innovator? PharmacoEconomics [PubMed] Published 13th January 2020
NICE is currently starting a review of the methods and process for health technology assessment. Mark Sculpher and Steve Palmer take this opportunity to reflect on how NICE’s methods have evolved over time and to propose areas ripe for an update.
It was very enjoyable to read about the history of the Methods Guide and how NICE has responded to its changing context, responsibilities, and new challenges. For example, the cost-effectiveness threshold of £20k-£30k/QALY was introduced by the 2004 Methods Guide. This threshold was reinforced by the 2019 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access. The funny thing is, although NICE is constrained to the £20k-£30k/QALY threshold, the Department of Health and Social Care routinely uses Claxton et al’s £13k/QALY benchmark.
Mark and Steve go through five key topics in health technology assessment to pick out the areas that should be considered for an update. The topics are: health measurement and valuation, broader benefits, perspective, modelling, and uncertainty. For example, whether/how to consider caregiver burden, and benefits (and opportunity costs) on caregivers, guidance on model validation, and formal incorporation of value of information methods. These are all sorely needed and would definitely cement NICE’s position as the international standard-setter for health technology assessment.
Beyond NICE and the UK, I found that this paper provides a good overview on hot topics in cost-effectiveness for the next few years. Must read for cost-effectiveness analysts!
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