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	Institution: STANFORD Univ Med Center  | My Account | E-mail Alerts | Access Rights | Sign In Vol. 6 No. 6, November 1997   Archives  •  Online Features LETTERS TO THE EDITOR  This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal What Is a Cost-effectiveness Analysis? Diane M. Harper, MD, MPH Dartmouth Medical School Hanover, NH Arch Fam Med. 1997;6(6):527-528. Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. The editorial by Reed1 in response to the work by Chesebro and Everett2 was quite welcome. Any study that claims to be a cost-benefit analysis or a cost-effectiveness analysis must meet stringent criteria for methodology. The standards for these analyses are described in the book by Gold et al titled Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine.3 The National Institutes of Health believed that the standardization of this methodology was so important that it sponsored a work-shop on cost-effectiveness in health and medicine in late November 1996. More than 300 nationally recognized researchers in this field participated in this conference. Chesebro and Everett used the right "buzz words" in their work but did not appear to have the correct methodology to support the work. The structure of a cost-benefit or cost-effectiveness analysis starts with a decision model of the question. Chesebro and Everett did not have a decision . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article] HOME | CURRENT ISSUE | PAST ISSUES | TOPIC COLLECTIONS | CME | PHYSICIAN JOBS | HELP CONDITIONS OF USE | PRIVACY POLICY | CONTACT US | SITE MAP   © 1997 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.