
Can “sufficient capability” improve population health and health inequality?
Shifting to a “sufficient capability” objective may help address efficiency and equity concerns without the need for more complex economic evaluation frameworks that require dual objectives to deal with population health and health inequality simultaneously. 1. Introduction
What is the probability of concluding that the treatments do not differ?
The probability of concluding that the treatments do not differ, when in reality they do not differ, is 20% D. The probability of concluding that the treatments differ, when in reality they do differ, is 20% E. The probability of concluding that the treatments do not differ, when in reality they do differ, is 80% A.
What are two measures of public health impact often used?
Two measures of public health impact often used are the attributable proportion and efficacy or effectiveness. The attributable proportion, also known as the attributable risk percent, is a measure of the public health impact of a causative factor.
What is the importance of efficacy studies?
Effectiveness studies can be valuable to test whether and how much the results of efficacy trials are applicable to practical life. Effectiveness trials are used to study or capture the multi-factorial nature of interventions and inform the result of intervention in practical setting.

What is efficacy effectiveness and efficiency?
Efficacy, in the health care sector, is the capacity of a given intervention under ideal or controlled conditions. Effectiveness is the ability of an intervention to have a meaningful effect on patients in normal clinical conditions. Efficiency is doing things in the most economical way.
How do you measure the efficacy of a treatment?
The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the most reliable methodology for assessing the efficacy of treatments in medicine. In such a trial a defined group of study patients is assigned to either receive the treatment or not, or to receive different doses of the treatment, through a formal process of randomization.
What is difference between efficiency and efficacy?
While these two words are similar, efficiency vs. efficacy have different meanings. Efficacy is about whether or not something can be done at all. Efficiency is about how something is done and if it minimizes waste.
What is efficacy in health care?
In medicine, the ability of an intervention (for example, a drug or surgery) to produce the desired beneficial effect.
Why is effectiveness important in healthcare?
Improving efficiency or reducing wastage leads to saving healthcare budget. This saved money can be spent on less accessible products and/or services. This is particularly important in settings with limited health budget to provide equitable care for their population [1,37-39].
How is efficacy calculated?
This is calculated by comparing the number of cases of disease in the vaccinated group versus the placebo group. An efficacy of 80% does not mean that 20% of the vaccinated group will become ill.
What is an example of effectiveness and efficiency?
While efficiency refers to how well something is done, effectiveness refers to how useful something is. For example, a car is a very effective form of transportation, able to move people across long distances, to specific places, but a car may not trasport people efficiently because of how it uses fuel.
What's an example of efficacy?
Efficacy definition Power or capacity to produce a desired effect; effectiveness. Efficacy is defined as the ability to do what is defined as desired or to be effective at producing a result. An example of efficacy is when a crime bill is effective at stopping crime.
What is efficacy and effectiveness?
Efficacy and effectiveness are two concepts related to assessing the health care innovations. These concepts were defined by famous British Clinical Epidemiologist, Archie Cochrane. Although, they sound and look same, there are some major differences between these two terms. Before looking at the differences, we must understand that the distinction between efficacy and effectiveness should be viewed as a spectrum, not a strict dichotomy.
What is the difference between efficacy and effectiveness studies?
Characteristic differences of efficacy studies and effectiveness studies: Efficacy studies/trial are also known as explanatory trial. Effectiveness studies/trial are also known as pragmatic trial. Efficacy trials are used to study or see if the intervention has a specific effect.
Why are effectiveness studies important?
Effectiveness studies can be valuable to test whether and how much the results of efficacy trials are applicable to practical life.
What is effectiveness trial?
Effectiveness trials are used to study or capture the multi-factorial nature of interventions and inform the result of intervention in practical setting. Efficacy trials have strict inclusion and exclusion criteria for study population.
What is the difference between effectiveness and effectiveness?
Effectiveness. Efficacy is the extent to which an intervention does more good than harm under ideal circumstances. Effectiveness assesses whether an intervention does more good than harm when provided under usual/practical circumstances. Efficiency measures the degree of success of an intervention in ideal conditions.
Does placebo work in a study?
It uses placebo. It may rarely use placebo. These studies do everything possible to maximize the chance of showing an effect of treatment/intervention. These studies allow the real-world factors to take place and try harder to duplicate the situations that will be encountered in real-world.
What is the challenge of epidemiology?
Epidemiologists face a permanent challenge towards improving the design, analysis, interpretation, and reporting of observational and evaluative studies. Based on the analysis of a sample of articles that reported the results obtained in observational epidemiological studies published in major journals, ...
Is public health an extension of medicine?
However, the automatic transferal of this principle to public health is based on the belief that public health is merely an extension of medicine and consequently that their interventions mean biomedical interventions applied to populations.
Is biomedicine a public health intervention?
With respect to the goal of reducing incidence, biomedicine so far has made available to public health a set of interventions that, although relevant, are limited to only a few of the problems tormenting the health of the human populations.
Is epidemiology based on observational studies?
As epidemiological knowledge is predominantly built on results obtained from observational studies, the implications of wrong findings originating from these studies have been constraining both for epidemiologists and for those who make use of epidemiological knowledge.
Attributable proportion
The attributable proportion, also known as the attributable risk percent, is a measure of the public health impact of a causative factor. The calculation of this measure assumes that the occurrence of disease in the unexposed group represents the baseline or expected risk for that disease.
Vaccine efficacy or vaccine effectiveness
Vaccine efficacy and vaccine effectiveness measure the proportionate reduction in cases among vaccinated persons. Vaccine efficacy is used when a study is carried out under ideal conditions, for example, during a clinical trial.
Abstract
Assessing the value for money offered by new health technologies is playing an increasingly important role in aiding decision-making in health and care.
1. Introduction
Health economics are two words that some may be surprised to see side by side.
2. Economic evaluation in health and care: the rationale
Economists have played an important role in influencing policy decisions. They have developed toolkits to help address questions on how a government or organisation should proceed when faced with multiple alternative courses of action. Economic evaluation is one of these toolkits used for aiding decision-making.
3. Health economic evaluation: key steps
An important aspect in any economic evaluation is to consider what is known as the perspective that is appropriate for the decision-making context at hand.
4. An alternative to QALYs based on the Capability Approach
From a public policy perspective, an outcome like QALYs, that are focused on health-related quality of life, makes it difficult to compare benefits across other sectors in society and so limits comparisons to a healthcare budget.
5. Summary
The discipline of economics is also known as the study of choice ( Bishai and Rochaix, 2020 ). The choices that need to be made by policymakers in health and care can make economics, what some refer to as the dismal science, look even more sombre.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the generous time countless numbers of people have given me over the years on topics covered in this chapter.
