Considering health inequality impact in decision making: What does it mean for policy makers?

Posted on 9 December 2020

CHE's latest Policy Briefing written by Fan Yang, Colin Angus, Ana Duarte, Duncan Gillespie, Simon Walker and Susan Griffin

When making the decision about whether to fund a public health intervention, information on whether the intervention has different impacts on different population groups is important. However, economic evaluations that provide information on costs and health benefits in order to inform funding decisions do not tend to address whether impacts differ across population groups. A distributional cost-effectiveness analysis does explore differences across groups, and integrates impact on health inequality into economic evaluation. To do so, it brings in information on how people’s behaviours, their health condition and the intervention effectiveness and uptake vary across population groups.

In this policy brief article, we showcase the value of capturing differences between socioeconomic groups in the evaluation of how interventions impact on population overall health and health inequality. We also discuss how to adjust analyses to inform different decisions.

The Full report can be read here: Considering health inequality impact in decision making: (PDF , 1,058kb)

Other Policy and Research Briefing papers can be found here