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HomeCentre for Health EconomicsEvents and seminarsEvents and seminars 2026EE Seminar - Chris Bojke - October 2026

Back to the Future: Revisiting Conventional Methods to Accommodate Complex Hazard Functions in Survival Modelling for Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Seminar

Event date
Thursday 15 October 2026, 11.15am to 12.15pm
Location
In-person and online
A/019-020, Alcuin A Block, Campus West, University of York
Audience
Open to staff, students (postgraduate researchers only)
Admission
Free admission, booking not required

Event details

Abstract

Survival analysis is a key method in cost-effectiveness evaluation as it enables the assessment of health economic outcomes over extended periods, often far exceeding the observation duration of trials or other data collection periods. Traditionally, a standard set of parametric survival models that ignore patient-specific factors are evaluated for goodness of fit and clinical plausibility before selecting one as the base case for extrapolation. However, there is increasing evidence that these models, with their relatively simple hazard functions, are inadequate for capturing more complex hazard dynamics over time. Recent developments include decision algorithms that quickly favour complex methods such as cubic splines. While these methods handle intricate hazards in the short term, they introduce a new set of challenges and issues. This paper argues that a simpler approach incorporating observable heterogeneity, recognised by statisticians in the 1980s and 1990s and capable of addressing a primary driver of complexity, has been overlooked. We expand on the simple underlying theory, draw a distinction between individual and population-level survival and hazard functions, and demonstrate a known and straightforward technique for constructing population-level hazards for use in cohort models. We illustrate the benefits with a flexible user-definable simulation model and real-world data. We conclude by making recommendations to the current NICE/DSU guidance on survival modelling, which in many cases, may negate the need for adopting considerably more complex methods.

If you are not a member of University of York staff and are interested in attending a seminar, please contact alfredo.palacios@york.ac.uk or yirui.qian@york.ac.uk so that you can be added to the mailing list.

About the speaker

Chris Bojke, University of Leeds/Lumanity

Chris is an experienced empirical health economist with a background in economic evaluation, econometrics and health policy with an interest in applying econometric techniques to health technology applications to expand the economic evaluation framework to accommodate non-standard evaluations. For example to account for patient heterogeneity and/or use of observational data.

He has specific research interests in the health economics of:  wound care, mental health, maternity services; patient safety and health care workforce and he has extensive experience in using large and complex datasets such as the Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES)

Contact

Alfredo Palacios / Yirui Qian

alfredo.palacios@york.ac.uk & yirui.qian@york.ac.uk