IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v12y2003i1p33-49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing and comparing costs: how robust are the bootstrap and methods based on asymptotic normality?

Author

Listed:
  • Anthony O'Hagan
  • John W. Stevens

Abstract

This article addresses and challenges some common perceptions in the statistical assessment of costs and cost‐effectiveness in health economics. Cost data typically exhibit highly skew distributions. Two techniques whose validity does not depend on any specific form of underlying distribution are the bootstrap and methods based on asymptotic normality of sample means. These methods are generally thought to be appropriate for the analysis of cost data. We argue that, even when these methods are technically valid, they may often lead to inefficient and even misleading inferences. It is important to apply methods that recognise the skewness in cost data. We further demonstrate that it may also be important to incorporate relevant prior information in a Bayesian analysis. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony O'Hagan & John W. Stevens, 2003. "Assessing and comparing costs: how robust are the bootstrap and methods based on asymptotic normality?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 33-49, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:12:y:2003:i:1:p:33-49
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.699
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.699
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.699?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maiwenn J. Al & Ben A. Van Hout, 2000. "A Bayesian approach to economic analyses of clinical trials: the case of stenting versus balloon angioplasty," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(7), pages 599-609, October.
    2. Andrew H. Briggs & David E. Wonderling & Christopher Z. Mooney, 1997. "Pulling cost‐effectiveness analysis up by its bootstraps: A non‐parametric approach to confidence interval estimation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 327-340, July.
    3. Andrew H. Briggs, 1999. "A Bayesian approach to stochastic cost‐effectiveness analysis," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 257-261, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sundström, David, 2016. "On Specification and Inference in the Econometrics of Public Procurement," Umeå Economic Studies 931, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    2. Michał Jakubczyk & Bogumił Kamiński, 2010. "Cost‐effectiveness acceptability curves – caveats quantified," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(8), pages 955-963, August.
    3. Thompson, Simon G. & Nixon, Richard M. & Grieve, Richard, 2006. "Addressing the issues that arise in analysing multicentre cost data, with application to a multinational study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1015-1028, November.
    4. Manuel Gomes & Richard Grieve & Richard Nixon & W. J. Edmunds, 2012. "Statistical Methods for Cost-Effectiveness Analyses That Use Data from Cluster Randomized Trials," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 32(1), pages 209-220, January.
    5. Ilias Goranitis & Joanna Coast & Ed Day & Alex Copello & Nick Freemantle & Emma Frew, 2017. "Maximizing Health or Sufficient Capability in Economic Evaluation? A Methodological Experiment of Treatment for Drug Addiction," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 37(5), pages 498-511, July.
    6. Gianluca Baio & Laura Magazzini & Claudia Oglialoro & Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni, 2005. "Medical Devices: Competitiveness and Impact on Public Health Expenditure," Working Papers CERM 05-2005, Competitività, Regole, Mercati (CERM).
    7. Mohsen Sadatsafavi & Carlo Marra & Stirling Bryan, 2013. "Two‐Level Resampling As A Novel Method For The Calculation Of The Expected Value Of Sample Information In Economic Trials," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(7), pages 877-882, July.
    8. Sundström, David, 2014. "It’s All in the Interval - An imperfect measurements approach to estimate bidders’ primitives in auctions," Umeå Economic Studies 899, Umeå University, Department of Economics, revised 17 Jun 2016.
    9. Caterina Conigliani, 2008. "A bayesian model averaging approach with non-informative priors for cost-effectiveness analyses in health economics," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0094, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    10. Richard M. Nixon & David Wonderling & Richard D. Grieve, 2010. "Non‐parametric methods for cost‐effectiveness analysis: the central limit theorem and the bootstrap compared," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(3), pages 316-333, March.
    11. Ben F M Wijnen & Bea Hemmen & Ans I E Bouman & Henk van de Meent & Ton Ambergen & Peter R G Brink & Henk A M Seelen & Silvia M A A Evers, 2019. "Cost-effectiveness of an integrated 'fast track' rehabilitation service for multi-trauma patients: A non-randomized clinical trial in the Netherlands," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-17, March.
    12. Theodoros Mantopoulos & Paul M. Mitchell & Nicky J. Welton & Richard McManus & Lazaros Andronis, 2016. "Choice of statistical model for cost-effectiveness analysis and covariate adjustment: empirical application of prominent models and assessment of their results," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 17(8), pages 927-938, November.
    13. Andrew R. Willan & Matthew E. Kowgier, 2008. "Cost‐effectiveness analysis of a multinational RCT with a binary measure of effectiveness and an interacting covariate," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(7), pages 777-791, July.
    14. Manuel Gomes & Edmond S.-W. Ng & Richard Grieve & Richard Nixon & James Carpenter & Simon G. Thompson, 2012. "Developing Appropriate Methods for Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Cluster Randomized Trials," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 32(2), pages 350-361, March.
    15. Mohamed El Alili & Johanna M. van Dongen & Jonas L. Esser & Martijn W. Heymans & Maurits W. van Tulder & Judith E. Bosmans, 2022. "A scoping review of statistical methods for trial‐based economic evaluations: The current state of play," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(12), pages 2680-2699, December.
    16. Mohamed El Alili & Johanna M. Dongen & Keith S. Goldfeld & Martijn W. Heymans & Maurits W. Tulder & Judith E. Bosmans, 2020. "Taking the Analysis of Trial-Based Economic Evaluations to the Next Level: The Importance of Accounting for Clustering," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 38(11), pages 1247-1261, November.
    17. Bebu, Ionut & Luta, George & Mathew, Thomas & Kennedy, Paul A. & Agan, Brian K., 2016. "Parametric cost-effectiveness inference with skewed data," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 210-220.
    18. Anne Prenzler & Bernd Bokemeyer & J.-Matthias Schulenburg & Thomas Mittendorf, 2011. "Health care costs and their predictors of inflammatory bowel diseases in Germany," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 12(3), pages 273-283, June.
    19. Caterina Conigliani & Andrea Tancredi, 2006. "Comparing parametric and semi-parametric approaches for bayesian cost-effectiveness analyses in health economics," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0064, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    20. Casey Quinn, 2005. "Generalisable regression methods for costeffectiveness using copulas," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 05/13, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    21. O'Hagan, Anthony & Stevens, John W., 2004. "On estimators of medical costs with censored data," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 615-625, May.
    22. Caterina Conigliani & Andrea Tancredi, 2009. "A Bayesian model averaging approach for cost‐effectiveness analyses," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(7), pages 807-821, July.
    23. Borislava Mihaylova & Andrew Briggs & Anthony O'Hagan & Simon G. Thompson, 2011. "Review of statistical methods for analysing healthcare resources and costs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(8), pages 897-916, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David J. Vanness & W. Ray Kim, 2002. "Bayesian estimation, simulation and uncertainty analysis: the cost‐effectiveness of ganciclovir prophylaxis in liver transplantation," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(6), pages 551-566, September.
    2. Martin W. McIntosh & Scott D. Ramsey & Kristin Berry & Nicole Urban, 2001. "Parameter solicitation for planning cost effectiveness studies with dichotomous outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(1), pages 53-66, January.
    3. Francisco-José Polo & Miguel Negrín & Xavier Badía & Montse Roset, 2005. "Bayesian regression models for cost-effectiveness analysis," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 6(1), pages 45-52, March.
    4. Andrew R. Willan & Andrew H. Briggs & Jeffrey S. Hoch, 2004. "Regression methods for covariate adjustment and subgroup analysis for non‐censored cost‐effectiveness data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(5), pages 461-475, May.
    5. Andrew Willan, 2011. "Sample Size Determination for Cost-Effectiveness Trials," PharmacoEconomics, Springer, vol. 29(11), pages 933-949, November.
    6. F. J. Vázquez‐Polo & M. A. Negrín Hernández & B. González López‐Valcárcel, 2005. "Using covariates to reduce uncertainty in the economic evaluation of clinical trial data," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(6), pages 545-557, June.
    7. Daniel F. Heitjan & Huiling Li, 2004. "Bayesian estimation of cost‐effectiveness: an importance‐sampling approach," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 191-198, February.
    8. Simon Eckermann & Andrew R. Willan, 2009. "Globally optimal trial design for local decision making," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 203-216, February.
    9. Iris Arends & Ute Bültmann & Willem van Rhenen & Henk Groen & Jac J L van der Klink, 2013. "Economic Evaluation of a Problem Solving Intervention to Prevent Recurrent Sickness Absence in Workers with Common Mental Disorders," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-1, August.
    10. Daniel F. Heitjan & Alan J. Moskowitz & William Whang, 1999. "Problems with Interval Estimates of the Incremental Cost—Effectiveness Ratio," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 19(1), pages 9-15, January.
    11. Mohsen Sadatsafavi; & Carlo Marra; & Lawrence McCandless & Stirling Bryan, 2012. "The challenge of incorporating external evidence in trial-based cost-effectiveness analyses: the use of resampling methods," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 12/24, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    12. Daniel F. Heitjan & Alan J. Moskowitz & William Whang, 1999. "Bayesian estimation of cost‐effectiveness ratios from clinical trials," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 191-201, May.
    13. Mercedes Mareque & Elena de Prada Creo & Marcos Álvarez-Díaz, 2021. "Exploring Creative Tourism Based on the Cultural and Creative Cities (C3) Index and Using Bootstrap Confidence Intervals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-17, May.
    14. Pinto-Prades, Jose Luis & Loomes, Graham & Brey, Raul, 2009. "Trying to estimate a monetary value for the QALY," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 553-562, May.
    15. Bo Hu & Javiera Cartagena-Farias & Nicola Brimblecombe & Shari Jadoolal & Raphael Wittenberg, 2024. "Projected costs of informal care for older people in England," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 25(6), pages 1057-1070, August.
    16. Scott B. Cantor, 2004. "Clinical Applications in the Decision Analysis Literature," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 1(1), pages 23-25, March.
    17. Andrew Briggs, 2012. "Statistical Methods for Cost-effectiveness Analysis Alongside Clinical Trials," Chapters, in: Andrew M. Jones (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Health Economics, Second Edition, chapter 50, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Ferrari, Giulia & Torres-Rueda, Sergio & Michaels-Igbokwe, Christine & Watts, Charlotte & Jewkes, Rachel & Vassall, Anna, 2019. "Economic evaluation of public health interventions: an application to interventions for the prevention of violence against women and girls implemented by the “what works to prevent violence against wo," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103639, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Bettina Wulff Risør & Marianne Lisby & Jan Sørensen, 2018. "Comparative Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Three Different Automated Medication Systems Implemented in a Danish Hospital Setting," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 91-106, February.
    20. Negri­n, Miguel A. & Vázquez-Polo, Francisco-José, 2008. "Incorporating model uncertainty in cost-effectiveness analysis: A Bayesian model averaging approach," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1250-1259, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:12:y:2003:i:1:p:33-49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.