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Alastair Canaway’s journal round-up for 30th July 2018

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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.

Is there an association between early weight status and utility-based health-related quality of life in young children? Quality of Life Research [PubMed] Published 10th July 2018

Childhood obesity is an issue which has risen to prominence in recent years. Concurrently, there has been an increased interest in measuring utility values in children for use in economic evaluation. In the obesity context, there are relatively few studies that have examined whether childhood weight status is associated with preference-based utility and, following, whether such measures are useful for the economic evaluation of childhood obesity interventions. This study sought to tackle this issue using the proxy version of the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI-3) and weight status data in 368 children aged five years. Associations between weight status and HUI-3 score were assessed using various regression techniques. No statistically significant differences were found between weight status and preference-based health-related quality of life (HRQL). This adds to several recent studies with similar findings which imply that young children may not experience any decrements in HRQL associated with weight status, or that the measures we have cannot capture these decrements. When considering trial-based economic evaluation of childhood obesity interventions, this highlights that we should not be solely relying on preference-based instruments.

Time is money: investigating the value of leisure time and unpaid work. Value in Health Published 14th July 2018

For those of us who work on trials, we almost always attempt to do some sort of ‘societal’ perspective incorporating benefits beyond health. When it comes to valuing leisure time and unpaid work there is a dearth of literature and numerous methodological challenges which has led to a bit of a scatter-gun approach to measuring and valuing (usually by ignoring) this time. The authors in the paper sought to value unpaid work (e.g. household chores and voluntary work) and leisure time (“non-productive” time to be spent on one’s likings, nb. this includes lunch breaks). They did this using online questionnaires which included contingent valuation exercises (WTP and WTA) in a sample of representative adults in the Netherlands. Regression techniques following best practice were used (two-part models with transformed data). Using WTA they found an additional hour of unpaid work and leisure time was valued at €16 Euros, whilst the WTP value was €9.50. These values fall into similar ranges to those used in other studies. There are many issues with stated preference studies, which the authors thoroughly acknowledge and address. These costs, so often omitted in economic evaluation, have the potential to be substantial and there remains a need to accurately value this time. Capturing and valuing these time costs remains an important issue, specifically, for those researchers working in countries where national guidelines for economic evaluation prefer a societal perspective.

The impact of depression on health-related quality of life and wellbeing: identifying important dimensions and assessing their inclusion in multi-attribute utility instruments. Quality of Life Research [PubMed] Published 13th July 2018

At the start of every trial, we ask “so what measures should we include?” In the UK, the EQ-5D is the default option, though this decision is not often straightforward. Mental health disorders have a huge burden of impact in terms of both costs (economic and healthcare) and health-related quality of life. How we currently measure the impact of such disorders in economic evaluation often receives scrutiny and there has been recent interest in broadening the evaluative space beyond health to include wellbeing, both subjective wellbeing (SWB) and capability wellbeing (CWB). This study sought to identify which dimensions of HRQL, SWB and CWB were most affected by depression (the most common mental health disorder) and to examine the sensitivity of existing multi-attribute utility instruments (MAUIs) to these dimensions. The study used data from the “Multi-Instrument Comparison” study – this includes lots of measures, including depression measures (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale); SWB measures (Personal Wellbeing Index, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Integrated Household Survey); CWB (ICECAP-A); and multi-attribute utility instruments (15D, AQoL-4D, AQoL-8D, EQ-5D-5L, HUI-3, QWB-SA, and SF-6D). To identify dimensions that were important, the authors used the ‘Glass’s Delta effect size’ (the difference between the mean scores of healthy and self-reported groups divided by the standard deviation of the healthy group). To investigate the extent to which current MAUIs capture these dimensions, each MAUI was regressed on each dimension of HRQL, CWB and SWB. There were lots of interesting findings. Unsurprisingly, the most important dimensions were in the psychosocial dimensions of HRQL (e.g. the ‘coping’, ‘happiness’, and ‘self-worth’ dimensions of the AQoL-8D). Interestingly, the ICECAP-A proved to be the best measure for distinguishing between healthy individuals and those with depression. The SWB measures, on the other hand, were less impacted by depression. Of the MAUIs, the AQoL-8D was the most sensitive, whilst our beloved EQ-5D-5L and SF-6D were the least sensitive at distinguishing dimensions. There is a huge amount to unpack within this study, but it does raise interesting questions regarding measurement issues and the impact of broadening the evaluative space for decision makers. Finally, it’s worth noting that a new MAUI (ReQoL) for mental health has been recently developed – although further testing is needed, this is something to consider in future.

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Alastair Canaway’s journal round-up for 28th May 2018

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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.

Information, education, and health behaviours: evidence from the MMR vaccine autism controversy. Health Economics [PubMed] Published 2nd May 2018

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published (in the Lancet) his infamous and later retracted research purportedly linking the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Despite the thorough debunking and exposure of academic skulduggery, a noxious cloud of misinformation remained in the public mind, particularly in the US. This study examined several facets of the MMR fake news including: what impact did this have on vaccine uptake in the US (both MMR and other vaccines); how did state level variation in media coverage impact uptake; and what role did education play in subsequent decisions about whether to vaccinate or not. This study harnessed the National Immunization Survey from 1995 to 2006 to answer these questions. This is a yearly dataset of over 200,000 children aged between 19 to 35 months with detailed information on not just immunisation, but also maternal education, income and other sociodemographics. The NewsLibrary database was used to identify stories published in national and state media relating to vaccines and autism. Various regression methods were implemented to examine these data. The paper found that, unsurprisingly, for the year following the Wakefield publication the MMR vaccine take-up declined by between 1.1%-1.5% (notably less than 3% in the UK), likewise this fall in take-up spilled over into other vaccines take-up. The most interesting finding related to education: MMR take-up for children of college-educated mothers declined significantly compared to those without a degree. This can be explained by the education gradient where more-educated individuals absorb and respond to health information more quickly. However, in the US, this continued for many years beyond 2003 despite proliferation of research refuting the autism-MMR link. This contrasts to the UK where educational link closed soon after the findings were refuted, that is, in the UK, the educated responded to the new information refuting the MMR-Autism link. In the US, despite the research being debunked, MMR uptake was lower in the children of those with higher levels of education for many more years. The author speculates that this contrast to the UK may be a result of the media influencing parents’ decisions. Whilst the media buzz in the UK peaked in 2002, it had largely subsided by 2003. In the US however, the media attention was constant, if not increasing till 2006, and so this may have been the reason the link remained within the US. So, we have Andrew Wakefield and arguably fearmongering media to blame for causing a long-term reduction in MMR take-up in the US. Overall, an interesting study leaning on multiple datasets that could be of interest for those working with big data.

Can social care needs and well-being be explained by the EQ-5D? Analysis of the Health Survey for England. Value in Health Published 23rd May 2018

There is increasing discussion about integrating health and social care to provide a more integrated approach to fulfilling health and social care needs. This creates challenges for health economists and decision makers when allocating resources, particularly when comparing benefits from different sectors. NICE itself recognises that the EQ-5D may be inappropriate in some situations. With the likes of ASCOT, ICECAP and WEMWBS frequenting the health economics world this isn’t an unknown issue. To better understand the relationship between health and social care measures, this EuroQol Foundation funded study examined the relationship between social care needs as measured by the Barthel Index, well-being measured using WEMWBS and also the GGH-12, and the EQ-5D as the measure of health. Data was obtained through the Health Survey for England (HSE) and contained 3354 individuals aged over 65 years. Unsurprisingly the authors found that higher health and wellbeing scores were associated with an increased probability of no social care needs. Those who are healthier or at higher levels of wellbeing are less likely to need social care. Of all the instruments, it was the self-care and the pain/discomfort dimensions of the EQ-5D that were most strongly associated with the need for social care. No GHQ-12 dimensions were statistically significant, and for the WEMWBS only the ‘been feeling useful’ and ‘had energy to spare’ were statistically significantly associated with social care need. The authors also investigated various other associations between the measures with many unsurprising findings e.g. EQ-5D anxiety/depression dimension was negatively associated with wellbeing as measured using the GHQ-12. Although the findings are favourable for the EQ-5D in terms of it capturing to some extent social care needs, there is clearly still a gap whereby some outcomes are not necessarily captured. Considering this, the authors suggest that it might be appropriate to strap on an extra dimension to the EQ-5D (known as a ‘bolt on’) to better capture important ‘other’ dimensions, for example, to capture dignity or any other important social care outcomes. Of course, a significant limitation with this paper relates to the measures available in the data. Measures such as ASCOT and ICECAP have been developed and operationalised for economic evaluation with social care in mind, and a comparison against these would have been more informative.

The health benefits of a targeted cash transfer: the UK Winter Fuel Payment. Health Economics [PubMed] [RePEc] Published 9th May 2018

In the UK, each winter is accompanied by an increase in mortality, often known as ‘excess winter mortality’ (EWM). To combat this, the UK introduced the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), the purpose of the WFP is an unconditional cash transfer to households containing an older person (those most vulnerable to EWM) above the female state pension age with the intent for this to used to help the elderly deal with the cost of keeping their dwelling warm. The purpose of this paper was to examine whether the WFP policy has improved the health of elderly people. The authors use the Health Surveys for England (HSE), the Scottish health Survey (SHeS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and employ a regression discontinuity design to estimate causal effects of the WFP. To measure impact (benefit) they focus on circulatory and respiratory illness as measured by: self-reports of chest infection, nurse measured hypertension, and two blood biomarkers for infection and inflammation. The authors found that for those living in a household receiving the payment there was a 6% point reduction (p<0.01) in the incidence of high levels of serum fibrinogen (biomarker) which are considered to be a marker of current infection and are associated with chronic pulmonary disease. For the other health outcomes, although positive, the estimated effects were less robust and not statistically significant. The authors investigated the impact of increasing the age of eligibility for the WFP (in line with the increase of women’s pension age). Their findings suggest there may be some health cost associated with the increase in age of eligibility for WFP. To surmise, the paper highlights that there may be some health benefits from the receipt of the WFP. What it doesn’t however consider is opportunity cost. With WFP costing about £2 billion per year, as a health economist, I can’t help but wonder if the money could have been better spent through other avenues.

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Alastair Canaway’s journal round-up for 29th January 2018

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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.

Is “end of life” a special case? Connecting Q with survey methods to measure societal support for views on the value of life-extending treatments. Health Economics [PubMed] Published 19th January 2018

Should end-of-life care be treated differently? A question often asked and previously discussed on this blog: findings to date are equivocal. This question is important given NICE’s End-of-Life Guidance for increased QALY thresholds for life-extending interventions, and additionally the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF). This week’s round-up sees Helen Mason and colleagues attempt to inform the debate around societal support for views of end-of-life care, by trying to determine the degree of support for different views on the value of life-extending treatment. It’s always a treat to see papers grounded in qualitative research in the big health economics journals and this month saw the use of a particularly novel mixed methods approach adding a quantitative element to their previous qualitative findings. They combined the novel (but increasingly recognisable thanks to the Glasgow team) Q methodology with survey techniques to examine the relative strength of views on end-of-life care that they had formulated in a previous Q methodology study. Their previous research had found that there are three prevalent viewpoints on the value of life-extending treatment: 1. ‘a population perspective: value for money, no special cases’, 2. ‘life is precious: valuing life-extension and patient choice’, 3. ‘valuing wider benefits and opportunity cost: the quality of life and death’. This paper used a large Q-based survey design (n=4902) to identify societal support for the three different viewpoints. Viewpoints 1 and 2 were found to be dominant, whilst there was little support for viewpoint 3. The two supported viewpoints are not complimentary: they represent the ethical divide between the utilitarian with a fixed budget (view 1), and the perspective based on entitlement to healthcare (view 2: which implies an expanding healthcare budget in practice). I suspect most health economists will fall into camp number one. In terms of informing decision making, this is very helpful, yet unhelpful: there is no clear answer. It is, however, useful for decision makers in providing evidence to balance the oft-repeated ‘end of life is special’ argument based solely on conjecture, and not evidence (disclosure: I have almost certainly made this argument before). Neither of the dominant viewpoints supports NICE’s End of Life Guidance nor the CDF. Viewpoint 1 suggests end of life interventions should be treated the same as others, whilst viewpoint 2 suggests that treatments should be provided if the patient chooses them; it does not make end of life a special case as this viewpoint believes all treatments should be available if people wish to have them (and we should expand budgets accordingly). Should end of life care be treated differently? Well, it depends on who you ask.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of childhood health utilities. Medical Decision Making [PubMed] Published 7th October 2017

If you’re working on an economic evaluation of an intervention targeting children then you are going to be thankful for this paper. The purpose of the paper was to create a compendium of utility values for childhood conditions. A systematic review was conducted which identified a whopping 26,634 papers after deduplication – sincere sympathy to those who had to do the abstract screening. Following abstract screening, data were extracted for the remaining 272 papers. In total, 3,414 utility values were included when all subgroups were considered – this covered all ICD-10 chapters relevant to child health. When considering only the ‘main study’ samples, 1,191 utility values were recorded and these are helpfully separated by health condition, and methodological characteristics. In short, the authors have successfully built a vast catalogue of child utility values (and distributions) for use in future economic evaluations. They didn’t, however, stop there, they then built on the systematic review results by conducting a meta-analysis to i) estimate health utility decrements for each condition category compared to general population health, and ii) to examine how methodological factors impact child utility values. Interestingly for those conducting research in children, they found that parental proxy values were associated with an overestimation of values. There is a lot to unpack in this paper and a lot of appendices and supplementary materials are included (including the excel database for all 3,414 subsamples of health utilities). I’m sure this will be a valuable resource in future for health economic researchers working in the childhood context. As far as MSc dissertation projects go, this is a very impressive contribution.

Estimating a cost-effectiveness threshold for the Spanish NHS. Health Economics [PubMed] [RePEc] Published 28th December 2017

In the UK, the cost-per-QALY threshold is long-established, although whether it is the ‘correct’ value is fiercely debated. Likewise in Spain, there is a commonly cited threshold value of €30,000 per QALY with a dearth of empirical justification. This paper sought to identify a cost-per-QALY threshold for the Spanish National Health Service (SNHS) by estimating the marginal cost per QALY at which the SNHS currently operates on average. This was achieved by exploiting data on 17 regional health services between the years 2008-2012 when the health budget experienced considerable cuts due to the global economic crisis. This paper uses econometric models based on the provoking work by Claxton et al in the UK (see the full paper if you’re interested in the model specification) to achieve this. Variations between Spanish regions over time allowed the authors to estimate the impact of health spending on outcomes (measured as quality-adjusted life expectancy); this was then translated into a cost-per-QALY value for the SNHS. The headline figures derived from the analysis give a threshold between €22,000 and €25,000 per QALY. This is substantially below the commonly cited threshold of €30,000 per QALY. There are, however (as to be expected) various limitations acknowledged by the authors, which means we should not take this threshold as set in stone. However, unlike the status quo, there is empirical evidence backing this threshold and it should stimulate further research and discussion about whether such a change should be implemented.

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