Critical appraisal of an economic evaluation

1800, not including the references list.
Assignments that are over the word limit (a margin of 10% of the word count is acceptable) will drop a grade.

Task description

In this assessment you will apply the concepts you have learnt, to critically assess the published economic evaluation listed below. To do this you will address a number of questions applying a checklist, which will be outlined during the course, and is available on page 42-43 in the textbook.
?Beigi R et al. Economic Value of Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza Vaccination during Pregnancy. Clin Infect Dis. (2009) 49 (12): 1784-1792.

A detailed practical example of a critical review of an article using a checklist use can be found in Drummond et al. (required text) pp 41-76.

Referencing

There is no specific style required but it must be consistent and follow the general advice from the School. Please do not use footnotes. In terms of numbers of references, you should go beyond the article itself and Drummond et al. but I am not expecting over 20 references in total. The reference list does not count towards the word limit.

Learning outcomes assessed
?Recognise and apply the key steps in critically appraising an economic evaluation
?Describe the concepts underpinning economic evaluation and its use in decision making
?Identify relevant costs and consequences and the methods used to value them

I wanted to give a bit more advice or instructions on Assignment 2. You should as the Course Outline suggests apply the Checklist in Drummond on pg42-44.

You will note that there are 10 main questions and a number of sub-questions.You have two options you can either:

a. Write the assignment divided into these 10 sections.

b. Write the assignment divided into 8 sections. You do this by combining points 4/5/6. You still need to consider all the issues raised under each of these questions but the reason I allow this is sometimes students are a bit confused about what to put where for these 3 questions. Title combined point ?Were all relevant costs and health outcomes considered appropriately in the analysis??

Also, you should consider the sub-questions but do not divide the assignment beyond the 10 sections (or 8 sections) indicated above. You should state YES/NO/CAN\’T TELL for each of the sections but as there is sometimes ambiguity around what to put in general marks are allocated for what is written under each section not the YES/NO/CAN\’T TELL answer.

You need to take a critical approach and discuss potential limitations etc. but as a starting point for each section you should briefly describe what they did. This is important to show you understand the study and the concepts involved. You can also mention what they did well in the study alongside what you believe they could have done better. .

Probably the most helpful thing you should do before you start is to read the Drummond chapter 3 on critical appraisal. This includes 2 examples of reviews using the Drummond Checklist. You should also listen to my lecture on this topic in week 8.

In terms of references. You should reference the study and Drummond text book. In terms of other sources, you could track down and reference some of the sources used to establish key inputs in the study (i.e. those it references). I do not expect you to read every study it uses to inform all the different inputs but some will be fairly critical to the results and should generally be read, referenced and discussed (e.g. the source/s for the efficacy values used are often critical).

You can also read other cost-effectiveness studies that have evaluated the same topic and reference these if they make a point you believe is relevant (e.g. they may have made a different assumption from the study being reviewed and you may want to discuss this, particularly if you feel the assumption is important