Scan brief descriptions of initiatives and work conducted by our center community and our decision science colleagues across the globe.

Regulatory Analysis: Distribution Effects?

Prior to putting forth a major health, environmental, or safety regulation, government agencies in the U.S. are generally expected to analyze the distribution of its impacts as well as its total costs and benefits. This review of several regulatory analyses found that agencies’ analyses provide little information on distributional impacts.

Valuing Health Interventions

The value of health interventions – often quantified using measures such as Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) – is crucial in policy analysis. This discussion between Dean Jamison and Lawrence H. Summers addresses related challenges, including prioritizing health improvements, and efficiently allocating resources to maximize benefits, while considering ethical implications in public health decisions.

 

Valuing Health Financing

The value of health financing – assessed through economic evaluation techniques like cost-effectiveness analysis – is critical in policy analysis. This article explores challenges such as defining costs and benefits, attributing impacts, and valuing current versus future lives. By optimizing resource allocation, these analyses ensure efficient and effective global health interventions.

 

Global Health 2035: Value of a Life Year

In "Global Health 2035," The Lancet Commission on Investing in Health adds the value of increased life expectancy to the value of growth in GDP when assessing national well-being. This paper investigates the sensitivity of this estimate to underlying assumptions such as the effects of income, age, life expectancy, and the sequencing of calculations.

Regulatory Impact Analyses: Tips

Regulatory impact analyses (RIAs) weigh the benefits of regulations against the burdens they impose and can be important and useful tools for informing decision makers. This Consumer’s Guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis offers 10 tips for non-specialist policymakers, decision makers and interested stakeholders who will be reading RIAs as consumers.

Economic Evaluation and COVID-19

COVID-19-related policies are fraught trade-offs. This perspective article outlines how policy-makers can use economic evaluation methods to be more transparent and logical when making these difficult decisions. Read the article and listen to the author interview podcast.

Featured Resource: Guidelines for Benefit-Cost Analysis

For more information on conducting benefit-cost analysis in low- and middle-income settings, see the methods papers and case studies prepared by the Guidelines for Benefit-Cost Analysis project team. These resources have been created to improve the quality of benefit-cost analyses, expand its use, and increase its comparability. Funding is provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.