HEVAL5110 – Valuing Health
Course description
Course content
The course aims to give a theoretical and practical introduction to methods for valuing health for the purpose of health economic evaluation, as well as monetary valuation. We will go through theoretical aspects underpinning different valuation methods, practical challenges when performing valuation studies, and implications of these issues for subsequent economic analyses. We will elaborate on strengths and weaknesses of the valuation methods in light of behavioural economics and measurement psychology. Controversies regarding what to measure, how to measure it, and who to ask will be addressed. A central part of the course is a set of mandatory practical home assignment between lectures, to gain practical experience with valuation tasks and how they work in real life.
Learning outcome
Knowledge
You will gain knowledge of:
- Methods for monetary valuation of health benefits and their limitations
- The history and practice of the most used health state valuation methods.
- Core concepts, such as Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL)
- Differences, similarities, and confusion surrounding the concepts of ‘utility’, ‘preference’, and ‘values’, in the context of health state valuation.
- Insight into multi-attribute utility theory and instruments.
- The theoretical underpinnings of health state valuation.
- Practical experience with health state valuation methods.
- Strengths and weaknesses of different methods of health state valuation.
- Discrepancies between theory and practice.
- Impact of framing and cognitive biases on health state valuation.
- Controversies in the field.
Skills
You will learn how to:
- perform the most used health state valuation methods.
- critically assess valuation studies and the use of health state values in health-economic analyses.
General competence
You will be able to:
- Treat health state values as more than a “black box” in health economic evaluation.
- Understand and follow the ongoing debates in health state valuation, such as the discrepancy between ‘decision utility’ and ‘experienced utility’.
Admission
Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.
If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.
Prerequisites
Recommended previous knowledge
HECON4100 - Fundamentals of Health Economics (or equivalent).
Overlapping courses
5 credits overlap with HMM4301 – Optimal allocation of health care resources and economic evaluation of health care technologies (discontinued)
Teaching
Lectures, mandatory assignments.
Access to teaching
A student who has completed compulsory instruction and coursework and has had these approved, is not entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework. A student who has been admitted to a course, but who has not completed compulsory instruction and coursework or had these approved, is entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework, depending on available capacity.
Examination
Written exam (4 hours).
Grading
The Board at the University of Oslo has decided to introduce detailed guidelines for all examinations, which take place at the University. The description of the grading should be clear and transparent. This is done to ensure alignment between learning outcomes, assignments, and grading. The Faculty of Medicine has developed a web page with information regarding exams and the grading procedures (norwegian version).
Use of sources and citation
You should familiarize yourself with the rules that apply to the use of sources and citations. If you violate the rules, you may be suspected of cheating/attempted cheating.
Examination support material
No examination support material is allowed.
Language of examination
For students at Eu-HEM: English
For students at HEPAM: The problem set will be given in English. Answers can be given in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or in English.
Grading scale
Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.
Explanations and appeals
Resit an examination
For HEPMA students:
For Eu-HEM students:
An EU-hem student cannot present her or himself for the examination in a course more than two times. There will be held re-sits for EU-hem students who have failed an exam or who have legitimate absence (usually illness) in January and August. If you are entitled to a re-sit you must contact the student advisor via email no longer than one week after the result of the exam has been published.
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Withdrawal from an examination
It is possible to take the exam up to 3 times. If you withdraw from the exam after the deadline or during the exam, this will be counted as an examination attempt.
Special examination arrangements
Application form, deadline and requirements for special examination arrangements.
Evaluation
The course is subject to continuous evaluation. At regular intervals we also ask students to participate in a more comprehensive evaluation.