What happens to value of information measures as the number of decision options increases?

Pelham Barton

Health Economics, 2011, vol. 20, issue 7, 853-863

Abstract: Aim: To explore what happens to the expected value of perfect information (EVPI) as an increasingly large number of decision options is considered. Methods: A stylised model of screening for a hypothetical cancer. The model was used to test different possible ages for ‘once in a lifetime’ screening under a variety of assumptions about model parameter uncertainty. Initial model runs only considered screening at ages which are multiples of 16 years, then multiples of 8 years were allowed, then 4 years, etc. Results: Effects of more refined choice sets on the cost‐effectiveness acceptability frontier (CEAF) and EVPI are shown. The CEAF collapses to zero for threshold incremental cost‐effectiveness ratios at which screening at some age is preferred to no screening, while the EVPI stabilises at a non‐zero figure. Conclusions: The CEAF is likely to be highly dependent on the choice of options when these are a selection from a very large set of possible options. In contrast, the EVPI can be reasonably approximated by a model with a slightly limited choice set. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1651

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:20:y:2011:i:7:p:853-863

Access Statistics for this article

Health Economics is currently edited by Alan Maynard, John Hutton and Andrew Jones

More articles in Health Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().