Integrating Economic Evaluation into Clinical Trials
course dates
29 - 30 April 2025
BOOK COURSE
Format
Online. The course comprises around five hours of pre-recorded lectures (40-75 minutes per session), practical exercises and live sessions The dates are for the live sessions during which tutors review exercises and offer opportunities for questions. Access to the online course materials is provided two weeks before the live sessions, so lectures and practical exercises can be viewed and worked through before the live sessions, at a time convenient to participants. To get the most out of the live sessions, we recommend viewing the lectures and working through the exercises before the live Q&A sessions.
academic course co-ordinators
Helen Dakin, University Research Lecturer
James Lathe, Teaching and Research
overview
In modern healthcare research, demonstrating that new treatments are cost-effective is as important as showing they are clinically effective. This short course equips participants with the knowledge and skills to plan and incorporate economic evaluation into clinical trials from the start. Through a combination of theory and practical exercises, the course helps ensure that a trial’s outcomes can inform real-world decisions about the value for money of new interventions.
who is this course for?
This new course is ideal for anyone involved in designing, conducting, or managing clinical trials who wants to include health economic perspectives in their work. It is tailored for clinical investigators, trial managers, research nurses, and other professionals looking to gain the skills needed to integrate economic evaluations into a study’s design and analysis. The content is accessible to those without a background in economics, all essential concepts are explained. The course provides a valuable foundation for professionals from academia, healthcare, or the pharmaceutical industry who aim to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions through trials.
course content
This two-day online course is divided into five sessions. Key topics include:
- fundamental concepts of health economics: introduction to cost-effectiveness analysis, and other core principles of economic evaluation;
- measuring outcomes for economic evaluation: assessing health-related quality of life and using clinical outcomes in analysis;
- collecting and valuing cost data: techniques for gathering cost data during trials and valuing resource use;
- economic evaluation methods and modelling: conducting trial-based cost-effectiveness analyses, addressing uncertainty, and basic health economic modelling;
- practical applications and collaboration: case studies, securing funding for trials with an economic component, and best practices for working with health economists.
The course is taught in English.
LEARNING outcomes
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- understand key health economic concepts and their application to clinical trial design;
- explain why governments and healthcare funders often require economic evaluations to assess new interventions;
- integrate health economists in a clinical trial from initial design and funding applications through to analysis and reporting;
- interpret the results of trial-based economic evaluations to inform healthcare decision-making and policy.
For enquiries, please email the HERC Administration team or complete the online form to be added to a waiting list for future courses.