Researchers from Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management (ESHPM) have received a grant of €10,000 from the Erasmus Trust Fund for the data collection of their project “Risks in Discrete Choice Experiments: Including patients’ preferences about risks and uncertainties in decisions on treatment cost-effectiveness.” This research project will be part of the Action Line “Evaluation of Health Care” in the Erasmus Initiative “Smarter Choices for Better Health 2.0”.
Risks in Discrete Choice Experiments
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) bodies recommend whether new health technologies should be reimbursed by evaluating their benefits, harms, and costs. In recent years, they have declared the need to move beyond the standard balance of costs and direct health effects to maximise population health within the limited resources available. As such, they recognise the importance of including patients’ preferences in HTA evaluations. Accounting for such preferences can increase patient satisfaction and adherence to new treatments and prevent wasting resources, while improving cost-effectiveness, and optimise health outcomes. However, before patients’ preferences can be systematically implemented in HTA decision-making, several methodological questions need to be answered. Preference measurements in healthcare can be challenging as the treatment effects are often of a complex and uncertain nature. Past research shows that patients misunderstand treatment risk (e.g. change of side effects) and find them to be complicated. Good understanding of these risks by the patients is crucial to validly assess their preferences.
This research project addresses this important and urgent issue by determining how to best include risk information (including the uncertainty in these risks) in patient preference studies to maximise understanding and accuracy of the study results.
The research project is a joint collaboration between ESHPM (Stella Marceta, Jorien Veldwijk, Esther de Bekker-Grob, Carina Oedingen), Erasmus School of Economics (Raf van Gestel, Matthew Robson, Tom Van Ourti) and external world-renowned choice modeler Joffre Swait. With this grant the project team will mainly finance the data collection of a preference study, in which they will assess how to best include risks in Choice Experiments.
About the Erasmus Trust Fund
The Erasmus Trust Fund was founded in 1913 and is the support fund of Erasmus University Rotterdam. The fund actively contributes to the university’s role in society by creating an independent source of additional income through donations. ESHPM and its alumni in the field obviously play an important role in tackling the challenges of our time. By way of emphasising that, a special faculty fund has been set up for ESHPM.
Help make future grants and scholarships at ESHPM possible
Would you like to contribute to ESHPM’s Erasmus Trust Fund and help make future grants and scholarships possible? We would like to invite you to donate to the fund by making a bank transfer to the Stichting Erasmus Trustfonds, Rotterdam, with mention of Faculteitsfonds ESHPM, at NL 06 ABNA 0564414352.
More information?
The Erasmus Trust Fund is a ‘Public Benefit Institution’ or ANBI. Your gift or legacy is therefore not subject to gift tax or inheritance tax. Would you like more information about how you can contribute to the growth and prosperity of the university or, more specifically, the ESHPM faculty fund? Contact Gwen van Loon, Senior Relation Manager Major Donors and Legacies of the Erasmus Trust Fund. She can be reached at g.vanloon@trustfonds.nl or via +31 (0)6-12892095.
