Product Description

Health economics is concerned with the evaluation of the effectiveness of health care, particularly by examining the social opportunity costs of alternative forms of treatment.  The peculiar nature of the market for health care – that doctors have a major influence on both supply and demand –.has attracted attention, as has the study of the options available for financing such services.

Economic Analysis in Health Care provides a comprehensive coverage of both the economics of health care systems and the evaluation of health care technologies.  It has been written as a core textbook for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students with knowledge of economic analysis and will appeal to an international audience.

• Adopts an international perspective, using examples and case studies from the UK, the rest of Europe, and other countries.
• Contains detailed exposition of the economic theory alongside relevant examples and applications
• Focuses on both market–related and economic evaluation aspects of health economics (some books focus purely on market–related aspects)
• Strong author team with very broad experience of writing and teaching health economics

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142047 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From the Back Cover
Economic Analysis in Healthcare is intended as a core textbook for both advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of health economics. The authors provide  comprehensive coverage of the field of economics in healthcare systems and the evaluation of healthcare technologies.

With up–to–date case studies and examples from both the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, Economic Analysis in Healthcare:

• Adopts an international perspective towards topics in health economics
• Creates a useful balance of theoretical treatment and practical application throughout the book
• Focuses uniquely on both market–related and economic evaluation aspects of health economics.

About the Author
Stephen Morris is a member of the Health Economics Research Group at Brunel University. He is the author of “Health Economics for Nurses: An Introductory Guide”, and has published over 20 academic papers in peer–reviewed journals. He has taught Health Economics at both Undergraduate and MSc level. and is a former Senior Lecturer at Tanaka Business School.

Nancy Devlin is Professor of Health Economics at City University, London. Nancy has published 23 papers on Health Economics since 2000, on topics including health care priority setting, economic evaluation of health care, management of waiting lists, measuring and valuing health states and health care reforms.

David Parkin is Professor of Health Economics at City University, London and is director of City’s MSc in Economic Evaluation. He has taught health economics for 25 years, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and has published 50 articles in peer–reviewed journals and books. He is also the organizer of the UK Health Economists’ Study Group.

Customer Reviews

covers both theory and practical analysis
This book is just brilliant, it covers basic economic theory as well as practical analytical methods.
It should suit both economic theorists and learners from applied fields.

I often come across books on economics that claim to be both theoretical and practical, but usually I get disappointed by the lack of practical tools taught in them.

This book however, lives up to it's claim: it covers intermediate-level economic theory applied to the health sector, AND it teaches you practical analytical tools and methods on how to analyze any given health sector.

Ideal prerequisites: knowledge of marginal concepts, utility functions etc. as well as basic econometrics and calculus. But I should make it clear that the authors explain all economic concepts, even basics such as Utility functions, so if you come from a non-Economics field you shouldn't worry too much.
The most important prerequisite is basic calculus, you should know about derivatives and such (Matrix algebra is not required) as well as basic statistics (simple linear regression etc.).

The book has two parts, the first covers economic theory applied to the health sector, the second part covers practical evaluation methods. The book shows you: what data to use, how to analyze the data, and even how to construct a Willingness-to-pay questionnaire. The balance between economic theory and practical analysis is very good in this very readable book.

Another nice thing is that they use actual examples from all over the world: Ireland, USA, UK, Sweden, Thailand etc.
I warmly recommend this book.

Economic Analysis in Health Care
Excellent book user friendly reading for economic and health care dummies. I see empowerment with this book as an asset.

Rgards;

James O Bunbury Jr.

Solid book but not for everybody
The authors have done a solid work covering all the major themes, often illustrated with useful examples. I personally enjoyed reading this book but I know some of my classmates found it hard to read, sometimes it is difficult to make sense of the long phrases that are often used.

Thorough coverage if you need a reference book but maybe not for the absolute beginners looking for something easier to read (maybe Drummond's Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes).