Use of economic evaluations by health psychologists and the relevance of their work for policy-making

Abstract

Aims: To enhance awareness, interest, knowledge, and skills for conducting economic evaluations alongside behavior change intervention studies. It is goal to draw attention to the need for, the steps to, and how to increase the usage of economic evaluations in behavior change interventions. Rationale: While the number of available behavior change interventions is increasing, given limited budgets, healthcare policy makers need to know whether the societal benefits of these interventions are worth the investments that have to be made to offer them. Hence, health technology assessment (HTA) and economic evaluations become increasingly important since they inform decision-making on which interventions achieve best value for money. However, the applicability and uptake continues to be limited. Results of an economic evaluation need to be useful and relevant for policy-making to prevent inefficient decisions or not using cost-effectiveness results at all. Summary: The symposium starts with an introduction to the importance of HTA and economic evaluations. The steps to conduct a typical economic evaluation will be discussed, followed by an overview in economic consequences of addiction, both to individuals and to society, illustrating the need for economic evaluations of behavior change interventions. Two types of economic evaluations (trial-based and model-based) in health promotion and public health will be presented to show the current state of art of economic evaluation studies. Despite the increasing number of HTA information, the usage by policy makers is limited. Hence, the last oral presentation will focus on the most important facilitators and barriers to the usage of HTA by policy makers, providing insights into how to bridge the gap between research and practice. Finally, the discussion will focus on the indispensable need to integrate economic evaluations in the health promotion sector to increase interest and reimbursement of preventive interventions on the national level, and their particular challenges.