title: Tutorial on health economics and outcomes research in nutrition.
abstract: As healthcare costs climb around the world, public and private payers alike are demanding evidence of a treatment's value to support approval and reimbursement decisions. Health economics and outcomes research, or HEOR, offers tools to answer questions about a treatment's value, as well as its real-world effects and cost-effectiveness. Given that nutrition interventions have to compete for space in budgets along with biopharmaceutical products and devices, nutrition is now increasingly coming to be evaluated through HEOR. This tutorial introduces the discipline of HEOR and motivates its relevance for nutrition. We first define HEOR and explain its role and relevance in relation to randomized controlled trials. Common HEOR study types--including burden of illness, effectiveness studies, cost-effectiveness analysis, and valuation studies--are presented, with applications to nutrition. Tips for critically reading HEOR studies are provided, along with suggestions on how to use HEOR to improve patient care. Directions for future research are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy Studies, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Philipson
authors.affiliation: Precision Health Economics, Los Angeles, California.
authors.forename: Mark T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Linthicum
authors.affiliation: Precision Health Economics, Los Angeles, California julia.snider@pheconomics.com.
authors.forename: Julia Thornton
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Snider
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D044623:Nutrition Therapy / Q000191:economics*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
keywords: burden of illness; cost effectiveness; cost utility analysis; effectiveness; efficacy; enteral nutrition; health economics; nutrition; oral nutrition supplement; outcomes research; value