Thinking Outside the Box: Recent Advances in the Analysis and Presentation of Uncertainty in Cost-Effectiveness Studies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
As many more clinical trials collect economic information within their study design, so health economics analysts are increasingly working with patient-level data on both costs and effects. In this paper, we review recent advances in the use of statistical methods for economic analysis of information collected alongside clinical trials. In particular, we focus on the handling and presentation of uncertainty, including the importance of estimation rather than hypothesis testing, the use of the net-benefit statistic, and the presentation of cost-effectiveness acceptability curves. We also discuss the appropriate sample size calculations for cost-effectiveness analysis at the design stage of a study. Finally, we outline some of the challenges for future research in this area-particularly in relation to the appropriate use of Bayesian methods and methods for analyzing costs that are typically skewed and often incomplete.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.103 | 0.283 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.010 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.012 | 0.019 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.007 | 0.012 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".