Expert opinion
José Leal, working with Rosa Legood and Sarah Wordsworth, has developed a methodology for eliciting the opinions of experts to inform individual economic model parameters when no sources of observable evidence are available. The aim was to create a clear, attractive, and quick tool that enabled a structured elicitation and representation of the uncertainty in the opinions. José developed a computer software interface potentially valuable for other decision analysts deriving expert opinion. The expert opinion tool has been used in the MCADD study, a screening study on a rare metabolic disease in newborns. A web based version allows the responding experts to access the tool and relevant data at their convenience. In his latest work, Jose Leal has explored issues such as fitting parametric distributions to the probability summaries provided by the experts, and the use of scoring methods during the aggregation of opinions.
Publication
Leal, J, Wordsworth, S, Legood, R, and Blair, E (2007). Eliciting expert opinion for economic models: an applied example. Value Health 10(3):195-203.