Health Economics Core Library Recommendations, 2011
Compiled by AcademyHealth
Funded by the National Library of Medicine
Section One
Background
At the request of the National Information Center for Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM), AcademyHealth has updated a list of books, journals, and Websites intended to serve as the basis of a core health economics collection or library. Since that list was originally created in 2003, the field of health economics has expanded. The traditional role of the library and librarian has changed as well. Those who used to rely on the library as their sole source for information now look to the Internet to locate resources. As technology has improved, libraries have evolved to meet the needs of their consumers. With that in mind, NLM asked AcademyHealth to update the health economics list, focusing on core (essential/indispensible) health economics materials—books, journals (print and online), bibliographic databases, and select electronic resources such as alerts, blogs, newsletters, and Websites.
What is Health Economics?
For the purposes of this project, we used the following definition for health economics:
An applied field of economics that uses the tools of economics to research and discuss issues and problems related to health and healthcare1. Health and healthcare intersect with so many topics, ranging from supply and demand, to health care financing, to statistics, to pharmacoeconomics, etc., that for the purposes of this project, we focus on general, domestic health economics core resources.
Researchers and consumers need to access specific resources to supplement their health economics analyses and develop a solid base of evidence, and librarians can direct them to appropriate, topic-specific primary sources of information. For librarians it is becoming increasingly important to access numerous sources for health services research. In their role as information broker, librarians sift through the myriad resources available, directing their consumers to the appropriate health economics information. To paraphrase several librarians, there was a time when librarians were the gatekeepers. Now, with the Internet and the ease of accessing information, the gate is wide-open. It is the librarian’s job to guide individuals to the correct path. Librarians look at the world of information and provide the filters, helping their customers—whether they are students, academics, researchers, or the general publ ic—find the information they need.
Methodology
Librarians and health services research/health economics experts from academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and federal agencies provided invaluable input to this project. Using NLM and AcademyHealth staff recommendations, and drawing on an extensive list of AcademyHealth contacts, eleven librarian experts (librarian panel) and eleven health economics experts (health economics panel) were identified to develop and review the resource list. (Please refer to Section Three of this report for a list of the experts.) Using the definition from the executive director of the American Society of Health Economists (2010) as a guide, librarian panelists and staff culled through library collections and the Internet to develop lists of recommendations The librarian panelists' search entailed looking at classics, textbooks, items with high request/circulation rates, reviews on various Websites, Doody's Core Titles, personal/professional familiarity with the resource, and materials frequently cited. Staff tallied recommendations from the librarian panelists and created four draft lists – books, journals, bibliographic databases, and electronic resources – for review and discussion.
To be considered as a book or a journal, a title had to be in print or accessible on the Internet and readily available, for example, via looking in WorldCat and finding a local lending library. To further assist panelists with their review, the 2009 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) impact factor and immediacy index was provided for the journals panelists suggested. As noted on the JCR’s Website, “the impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the average article in a journal has been cited in a particular year or period. The annual Journal Citation Reports impact factor is a ratio between citations and recent citable items published. The immediacy index is calculated by dividing the number of citations published in a given year by the number of articles published in that year. Note that the index is a per-article average.”
NLM and AcademyHealth convened the librarian panel via web conference on February 4, 2011. Prior to the web meeting, librarian panelists received the following four health economics documents for review:
- Draft core books (74 titles)
- Draft journals (63 titles)
- Draft bibliographic databases (21 suggestions)
- Draft select electronic resources (64 suggestions).
During the web conference, the librarian panel discussed each resource and then voted on whether or not each resource should be included in the core list. Ten panelists with voting privileges participated in the meeting. Any suggestion that received six or more votes was automatically left on the list for review by the second panel. In a few instances, suggestions receiving less than six votes were left on the list for consideration by the health economics panel. (Neither AcademyHealth nor NLM staff voted.)
The librarians had previously agreed (during the health policy module) on the following categories:
- books
- journals
- bibliographic databases
- select electronic resources (includes alerts, blogs, newsletters, and Websites).
After the meeting, staff revised the lists and re-circulated them electronically to the librarian panel for final review and comment.
Once all of the librarians’ comments were incorporated, staff shared the revised lists with the health economics panel for review and comment. Input from the health economics panel was merged with input from the librarian panel to develop the final core library module recommendations contained in Section Two of this report.
How to Use This List
This list of resources is not intended to be a comprehensive catalog of health policy resources, but rather, to provide a set of core, authoritative domestic resources considered valuable by librarians, health economics experts, and those interested in the fields of health services research and health policy.
Recent health reform legislation has resulted in a continuously evolving policy landscape; thus, the field is growing rapidly. We recommend that users of these lists search for updated versions of the resources cited here in order to ensure they are accessing the most recent information. Further, we suggest using these lists as an initial guide, and that researchers seek out a librarian for in-depth research assistance.
Librarians may wish to utilize this module by choosing specific content areas that will benefit their specific library needs. Likewise, faculty developing new courses may look to this list for suggested readings.
Section Two
Core Health Economics Books
A Note to the Reader The following list of core books in health economics is alphabetized by last name of the primary author. As of this publication date, all items listed are available either from the publisher's Website or via a local library. We recommend periodically checking the Publisher's Website for the most recent editions available as well as current pricing information.
- Briggs AH, Claxton K, Sculpher MJ. Decision modelling for health economic evaluation. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2006. Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Medicine/PublicHealth/?view=usa&ci=9780198526629#
- Cleverley WO, Cleverley JO, Song PH. Essential of health care finances, 7th edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2011. Publisher url: http://www.jblearning.com/catalog/9780763789299/
- Cutler, D. Your money or your life: strong medicine for America’s health care system. Oxford University Press; 2005 Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Health/?view=usa&ci=9780195181326
- Culyer AJ, Newhouse JP, editors. Handbook of health economics. Amsterdam, New York: North Holland/Elsevier, 2000. Publisher url: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/718229/description#description
- Culyer AJ. The dictionary of health economics, 2nd edition. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishers; 2010. Publisher url: http://www.e-elgar.com/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=13897
- Donaldson C, Gerard K, Jan S, Mitton C, Wiseman V. Economics of health care financing: the visible hand, 2nd edition. Palgrave; 2004. Publisher url: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=265134
- Drummond F, Sculpher MJ, Torrance G, O’Brien BJ, Stoddard, GL. Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes, 3rd edition. Oxford University Press; 2005. Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Medicine/PublicHealth/?view=usa&ci=9780198529446
- Feldstein PJ. Health care economics, 7th edition. New York: Thomson Delmar Learning; 2011. (7th edition forthcoming June 2011.) Publisher url: http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?N=0&Ntk=P_Isbn13&Ntt=9781111313265
- Feldstein PJ. Health policy issues: an economic perspective, 4th edition. Chicago: Health Administration Press; 2007. Publisher url: http://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?pc=www1-2078
- Folland S, Goodman A, Stano M. The Economics of health and health care, 6th Edition. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall; 2010. Publisher url: http://www.mypearsonstore.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0136080308
- Fuchs VR. Who shall live? Health, economics, and social choice, 2nd expanded edition. World Scientific Publishing Company; 2011. Publisher url: http://www.worldscibooks.com/economics/8167.html
- Gapenski LC. Fundamentals of health care finance. Chicago: Health Administration Press; 2009. Publisher url: http://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?pc=WWW1-2128
- Gapenski LC, Pink GH. Understanding health care financial management, 5th edition. Chicago: Health Administration Press; 2010. Publisher url: http://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?PC=www1-2070
- Getzen T. Health economics and financing, 4th edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; 2010. Publisher url: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-EHEP000322.html
- Glied S, Smith, PC. The Oxford handbook of health economics. Oxford University Press; 2011. Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/?queryField=keyword&query=zweifel+peter&view=usa&viewVeritySearchResults=true&ss=relevancy
- Glick HA, Doshi JA, Sonnad SS, Polsky D. Economic evaluation in clinical trials. Oxford University Press; 2007. Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Medicine/PublicHealth/?view=usa&ci=9780198529972
- Gold MR, Siegel JE, Rusell LB, Weinstein MC, editors. Cost-effectiveness in health and medicine. Oxford University Press, 1996. Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Medicine/PublicHealth/?view=usa&ci=9780195108248
- Henderson JW. Health economics and policy (with economic applications), 5th edition. Australia: South-Western Cengage Learning; 2011. (Forthcoming June 2011.) Publisher url: http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do?Ntt=henderson||9780538481175&Ntk=all||P_Isbn13&Ns=P_Author_Last&N=+4294922453
- Institute of Medicine. America's uninsured crisis: consequences for health and health care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2009. Publisher url: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12511
- Johnson-Lans S. A health economics primer. Prentice Hall, 2006. Publisher url: http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Health-Economics-Primer-A/9780321136695.page
- Jones AM, editor. The elgar companion to health economics. Edward Elgar Publishing; 2006. Publisher url: http://www.e-elgar.co.uk/Bookentry_Main.lasso?id=3572
- López-Casasnovas G, Rivera B, Currais L. Health and economic growth: findings and policy implications. Cambridge: The MIT Press; 2007. Publisher url: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11285
- Mooney GH. Challenging health economics. Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press; 2009. publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Health/?view=usa&ci=9780199235971
- Morrisey M. Health insurance. Chicago: Health Administration Press; 2007. Publisher url: https://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?PC=WWW1-2096
- Muennig P. Designing and conducting cost effectiveness analyses in medicine and health care. Jossey-Bass; 2010. Available from: http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Conducting-Cost-Effectiveness-Analyses-Jossey-Bass/dp/0787960136#reader_0787960136
- Newhouse JP, Insurance Experiment Group. Free for all: lessons from the RAND health insurance experiment. Harvard University Press; 1993. Publisher url: http://www.rand.org/pubs/commercial_books/CB199
- Newhouse, JP. Pricing the priceless: a health care conundrum. MIT Press; 2002. Publisher url: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10372
- Phelps CE. Health economics, 4th edition Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley; 2010. Publisher url: http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/Health-Economics/9780321594570.page
- Rice T, Unruh L. The economics of health reconsidered, 3rd edition. Chicago: Health Administration Press; 2009. Publisher url: http://www.ache.org/pubs/redesign/productcatalog.cfm?pc=WWW1-2133
- Santerre RE, Neun SP. Health economics: theories, insights, and industry studies, 5th edition. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western; 2010. Publisher url: http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/en/US/storefront/US?cmd=catProductDetail&ISBN=9780324789072
- Schweitzer SO. Pharmaceutical economics and policy, 2nd edition. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press; 2007. Publisher url: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Medicine/PublicHealth/?view=usa&ci=9780195300956
- Shemilt I, Mugford M, Vale L, Marsh K, Donaldson C, editors. Evidence-based decisions and economics: health, social welfare, education and criminal justice. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell; 2010. Publisher url: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405191538.html
- Witter S, Ensor T, Jowett M, Thompson R. Health economics for developing countries. A practical guide. London: MacMillan Education; 2000. Publisher url: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.679/abstract
- Zweifel P, Breyer F, Kifmann M. Health economics. New York: Springer Publishing; 2009. Available from: http://www.amazon.com/Health-Economics-Peter-Zweifel/dp/3540278044
Core Health Economics Journals
A Note to the Reader The following is a list of journal in general, domestic health economics. Journals marked with a single asterisk (*) are considered to be leading medical journals that contain articles on health policy and should be considered as core to all health-related libraries.
Journal Title
Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research
American Journal of Managed Care
American Journal of Public Health
Annals of Internal Medicine*
Applied Health Economics & Health Policy
BMJ*
Developments in Health Economics and Public Policy
Forum for Health Economics and Policy
Harvard Business Review
Health Affairs
Health Economics
Health Economics Policy and Law
Health Services Research
Inquiry
International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics
JAMA*
Journal of Health Care Finance
Journal of Health Economics
Journal of Health Policy Politics and Law
Journal of Human Resources
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management
Lancet*
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law
Medical Care: Official Journal of the Medical Care Section, APHA
Medical Care Research and Review (MCRR)
Medicare & Medicaid Research Review (MMRR)
Milbank Quarterly
New England Journal of Medicine*
Pharmacoeconomics
Quarterly Journal of Economics
RAND Journal of Economics
Social Science and Medicine
Value in Health
** Although this journal is now defunct—it was replaced by Medicare & Medicaid Research Review—articles from 1998-2008 can be accessed and searched at https://www.cms.gov/HealthCareFinancingReview.
Core Health Economics Bibliographic Databases
A Note to the Reader: Below please find a list of suggested core health economics bibliographic databases. The content in the majority of these databases expands beyond health economics. Individuals using these databases should tailor their searches to their specific needs.
| Site Name | URL | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ABI/Inform® | http://www.proquest.com/en-US/catalogs/databases/detail/abi_inform.shtml | ABI/Inform® is a general business database; includes business, management, economics, and other fields. (Subscription.) |
| Business Source® Premier | http://www.ebscohost.com/academic/business-source-premier | Business Source® Premier features the full text for more than 2,200 journals. Full text is provided back to 1965, and searchable cited references back to 1998. Journal ranking studies reveal that Business Source Premier's full-text coverage outshines its competitors in all business disciplines, including marketing, management, MIS, POM, accounting, finance and economics. Additional full text, non-journal content includes market research reports, industry reports, country reports, company profiles and SWOT analyses. (Subscription.) |
| CINAHL®(Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) | http://www.ebscohost.com/cinahl/ | CINAHL® provides abstracts of articles from over 924 journals (and some full-text documents from nursing organizations). Primarily covering nursing issues, the database also covers the topics of allied health and health sciences. It provides patient perspective, but the user must search for "methods" to retrieve articles that would relate to health services research methods. (Subscription.) |
| EconLit | http://www.aeaweb.org/econlit/index.php | The American Economic Association’s electronic bibliography, EconLit, indexes more than thirty years of economics literature from around the world. Compiled and abstracted in an easily searchable format, EconLit is a comprehensive index of journal articles, books, book reviews, collective volume articles, working papers and dissertations. (Subscription.) |
| Embase™ | http://embase.com/info/what-is-embase | Embase™ contains 23 million indexed records covering over 7,500 current, mostly peer-reviewed. journals in the biomedical sciences. Of note, if one has access to Scopus, Scopus covers the same source titles as Embase. (Subscription.) |
| Google Scholar | http://scholar.google.com/ | Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, one can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other Websites. (Free.) |
| Health Business™ Elite | http://www.ebscohost.com/government/health-business-elite | Health Business™ Elite provides full text from nearly 600 journals. It provides comprehensive journal content detailing all aspects of health care administration and other non-clinical aspects of health care institution management. (Subscription.) |
| Health Economics Evaluations Database (HEED) | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9780470510933 | HEED equips health professionals with the tools to make informed decisions about medicines and other healthcare interventions by providing comparative analysis of costs and consequences. It contains information on studies of cost-effectiveness and other forms of economic evaluation of medicines and other treatments and medical interventions. HEED also includes, in bibliographic detail, entries from the Wellcome and Battelle databases of economic evaluation literature. (Subscription.) |
| Health Policy Reference Center™ | http://www.ebscohost.com/government/health-policy-reference-center | Health Policy Reference Center™ is a comprehensive full-text database covers all aspects of health policy and related issues. This collection offers unmatched full-text coverage of information relevant to many areas that are integral to health policy. (Subscription.) |
| JSTOR | http://about.jstor.org/ | JSTOR is a not–for–profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive of over one thousand academic journals and other scholarly content. It uses information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. (Free.) |
| NHS EED | http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/CMS2Web/AboutNHSEED.asp | NHS EED aims to assist decision-makers by systematically identifying and describing full economic evaluations, appraising their quality and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses. Contains 24,000 abstracts of health economics papers including over 7,000 quality assessed economic evaluations. Potential economic evaluations, relevant to the NHS, are identified by hand searching key medical journals, regular searching of bibliographic databases, and by scanning health economic working papers and health technology assessments. (Free.) |
| PubMed/ MEDLINE® | http://www.nlm.nih.gov/databases/databases_medline.html | PubMed comprises approximately 20 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE®, life science journals, and online books. PubMed citations and abstracts include the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and preclinical sciences. PubMed is the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) platform for searching MEDLINE® and other content. It also provides access to additional relevant Websites and links to the other NCBI molecular biology resources. (Free; may need subscription to access journal articles.) |
| ProQuest Health Management™ | http://www.proquest.com/en-US/catalogs/databases/detail/pq_health_management.shtml | ProQuest Health Management™ is designed to meet the needs of researchers studying the field of health administration. Provides coverage for more than 820 key journals with over 4,500 doctoral dissertations and theses. (Subscription.) |
| Scopus | http://www.scopus.com/home.url | According to the Scopus homepage, this is the largest abstract and citation database of research literature and quality web sources covering nearly 18,000 titles from more than 5,000 publishers. Scopus covers the same source titles as MEDLINE® and Embase™. Institutional access is required to fully benefit from Scopus. Further, Scopus provides the number of citations of the article in Scopus and alerts to let one know when the article has been cited in Scopus. It also provides breakdowns (i.e., applicable numbers) of a retrieval set by year, authors, subjects, and document types and provides links to Web resources and patents matching the search criteria. It provides a list of references included in articles and, for applicable records, includes EMTREE Drug Terms and Medical Terms and MESH terms. Scopus also features an Author Identifier to automatically match an author’s published research including the h-index; a Citation Tracker to find, check and track citations in real-time; an Affiliation Identifier to automatically identify and match an organization with all its research output; a Journal Analyzer to provides insight into journal performance and interoperability with SciVerse ScienceDirect, Reaxis and ProQuest’s CSA Illumina. (Subscription.) |
| Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) | http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/webofscience/ssci/ or http://library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/bl0007.html | SSCI is a multidisciplinary index to the journal literature of the social sciences. It fully indexes over 1,950 journals across 50 social sciences disciplines. It also indexes individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. It is made available online through the Web of Science service for a fee. This database product provides information to identify the articles cited most frequently and by what publisher and author. The second url allows access to the same information via ProQuest/Dialog™ through the Social SciSearch® database. Social SciSearch® is an international, multidisciplinary index to the literature of the social, behavioral, and related sciences, produced by Thomson Scientific. Social SciSearch contains all of the records published in the Social Sciences Citation Index. (Subscription.) |
Core Health Economics Select Electronic Resources
A Note to the Reader: Below please find select general health economics electronic resources—alerts, blogs, newsletters, and Websites. (The list primarily focuses on domestic resources with a few exceptions.) We suggest using this list as a guide, utilizing the resources for informative purposes. We recommend deferring to your librarian for assistance with research questions.
| Site Name | URL | Description | Type of Resource |
|---|---|---|---|
| AcademyHealth | http://academyhealth.org/ | AcademyHealth is the professional home for health services researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners, and is a non-partisan resource for the health services research and policy communities. AcademyHealth produces a wealth of publications, ranging from newsletters to issue briefs to monographs and special reports. Its publications are key resources in several substantive areas, including health care financing and organization, purchasing, quality improvement, and rural, state, and international health policy. | Website |
| Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) | http://www.ahrq.gov | AHRQ supports research that helps people make more informed decisions and improves the quality of health care services. The Website provides access to reports, data, and surveys on a variety of topics in health economics (e.g. health care spending, health care costs, etc.), including the Effective Health Care (EHC) Program, Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), and Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). | Website |
| American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research | http://www.aei.org | The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a private, nonpartisan, non-profit institution that publishes free papers and reports on a variety of health economics topics (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, the economics of health care reform, pharmaceutical costs, health insurance costs, etc.). Podcasts of discussions between experts on a variety of health economics topics are available on the Website. | Website |
| America's Health Insurance Plans | http://www.ahip.org/ | America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is the national association representing nearly 1,300 member companies providing health insurance coverage to more than 200 million Americans. Access reports and analysis on health insurance plans, cost, and reform on the Website. | Website |
| American Society of Health Economists (ASHEcon) | http://ashecon.org/ | The American Society of Health Economists is a newly formed professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence in health economics research in the United States. ASHEcon is an affiliate of the International Health Economics Association. ASHEcon will provide a forum for emerging ideas and empirical results of health economics research. The major activity through which ASHEcon will achieve its mission will by conducting biennial meetings in the U.S. (alternative years to the iHEA conference). | Website |
| Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) | http://www.bea.gov | The Bureau of Economic Analysis, part of the Department of Commerce, produces economic accounts statistics that enable government and business decision-makers, researchers, and the American public to follow and understand the performance of the Nation's economy. To do this, BEA collects source data, conducts research and analysis, develops and implements estimation methodologies, and disseminates statistics to the public. Access data sets on health insurance claims and cost of health care price indexes on the Website. | Website |
| Center for Studying Health System Change | http://www.hschange.org | The Center for Studying Health System Change is a non-partisan, policy research organization. It designs and conducts studies focused on the U.S. health care system, focusing on the national and local market forces driving change in health care. Access to issue briefs, data tables, articles, and analyses on topics in health economics is available on its Website. Data from their two surveys: the Household Survey (17,800 individuals) and the Physician Survey (4,000-12,000 physicians have participated in at least one round of the survey) is available on the Website. These surveys cover changes in health care access, utilization, insurance, perceptions of care quality and problems paying medical bills, as well as sources of practice revenue and compensation. | Website |
| Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) | www.cms.gov or http://www.cms.gov/nationalhealthexpenddata | The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is a federal agency that provides access to programs, reports, and information on Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and HIPAA. Access surveys, reports, and data from its Website.
The National Health Expenditure Accounts Website provides spending measures annual health spending in the U.S. by type of service delivered (hospital care, physician services, nursing home care, etc.) and source of funding for those services (private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, out-of-pocket spending, etc.). |
Website |
| Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) | http://www.hcfo.net | A program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization bridges the health policy and health services research communities by providing public and private decision-makers with usable and timely information on health care policy, financing, and market developments. Access findings briefs, reports, policy briefs, newsletters, grantee publications, and a list of hot topics on a variety of health economics issues—Medicaid, SCHIP, physician payment and practice efficiency, health care costs, etc.— on its Website. | Website |
| Commonwealth Fund | http://www.commonwealthfund.org/ | Commonwealth Fund is a private foundation that aims to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults. Access reports, data, interactive maps, surveys, and case studies on a variety of health economics issues, cost, insurance, Medicare, health reform costs, health system performance, etc., on its Website. | Website |
| Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry | https://research.tufts-nemc.org/cear4/default.aspx | The Cost Effectiveness Analysis Registry is a comprehensive database of 2,576 cost-utility analyses on a wide variety of diseases and treatments. | Website |
| Council on Health Care Economics and Policy | http://council.brandeis.edu/ | The Council on Health Care Economics and Policy is an independent, non-partisan deliberative council of experts that identify critical issues generated by health system change, analyze the economic impact of such changes, and disseminate findings to national policy makers, health services researchers, industry leaders, and the general public. Access speeches and presentations and very limited access to some publications and conference briefs on its Website. | Website |
| Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care | http://www.dartmouthatlas.org | For more than 20 years, the Dartmouth Atlas Project has documented glaring variations in how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States. The project uses Medicare data to provide information and analysis about national, regional, and local markets, as well as hospitals and their affiliated physicians. | Website |
| EBRI (Employee Benefit Research Institute) | http://www.ebri.org/research/hrep/?fa=hlthpub | EBRI is a nonprofit organization that aims to contribute to, encourage, and enhance the development of sound employee benefit programs and sound public policy through objective research and education. Access issue briefs on health care costs, health benefits analysis, health insurance, and a variety of other issues in health economics on its Website. | Website/Issue Briefs |
| Economix: Explaining the Science of Everyday Life | http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/health-care/ | Economix is a blog that covers a variety of health care issues through an economic lens. Search for health care relevant Economix articles under the ‘Tag List.’ | Blog |
| The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies | http://www.euro.who.int/en/home/projects/observatory | The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies supports and promotes evidence-based health policy-making through comprehensive and rigorous analysis of the dynamics of health care systems in Europe. | Website |
| Health Affairs Blog | http://healthaffairs.org/blog/ | This is a blog from Health Affairs, a leading journal of health policy thought and research. | Blog |
| Health Business Blog | http://www.healthbusinessblog.com/ | Health Business Blog is a blog by David E. Williams, co-founder of MedPharma Partners LLC, strategy consultant to pharma, biotech, device, and technology enabled healthcare services industries. The blog focuses mainly on business issues in health care; many posts deal with health economics. | Blog |
| HSR Information Central/Health Economics (HSRIC) | http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hsrinfo/health_economics.html | Health Services Research Information Central, a resource portal, provides access to health economics data, key organizations, and reports. | Website |
| The Incidental Economist | http://theincidentaleconomist.com | As noted on the blog's site, The Incidental Economist is a blog (mostly) about the U.S. health care system and its organization, how it works, how it fails us, and what to do about it. All blog authors have professional expertise in an area relevant to the health care system. Main contributors Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll are researchers and professors in health economics and health services. | Blog |
| Institute of Medicine (IOM) | www.iom.edu | The Institute of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public. Established in 1970, the IOM is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Access reports, agendas, and briefings on health economics from its Website. | Website |
| International Health Economics Association (iHEA) | http://www.healtheconomics.org/ | The International Health Economics Association is a membership organization for health economists. They convene forums, produce a weekly publication, and reports. (Subscription required). | Website |
| International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) | http://www.ispor.org/ | The International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research promotes the science of pharmacoeconomics (health economics) and outcomes research (the scientific discipline that evaluates the effect of health care interventions on patient well-being including clinical outcomes, economic outcomes, and patient-reported outcomes) and facilitates the translation of this research into useful information for healthcare decision-makers to ensure that society allocates scarce health care resources wisely, fairly and efficiently. Access reports, books, presentations, etc., on health outcomes from its website. | Website |
| Kaiser Family Foundation | http://www.kff.org | Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., as well as the U.S. role in global health policy. The Website provides health care research and health policy analysis papers as well as a large-scale health news and information service and a series of specialized Websites (i.e. costs/insurance), featuring both data they produce as well as the latest and best data from others. | Website |
| Mathematica/Center for Healthcare Effectiveness (CHCE) | http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/chce/ | Mathematica's Center for Healthcare Effectiveness produces briefs and articles on a variety of health economics issues. | Website |
| MEDPAC | http://www.medpac.gov/ | The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) is an independent Congressional agency established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-33) to advise the U.S. Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program. The Commission's statutory mandate is quite broad: In addition to advising the Congress on payments to private health plans participating in Medicare and providers in Medicare's traditional fee-for-service program, MedPAC is also tasked with analyzing access to care, quality of care, and other issues affecting Medicare. | Website |
| National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) | http://www.nber.org/ | The National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, non-profit, non-partisan research organization focused on promoting a greater understanding of how the economy works. The NBER'S Health Economics Program emphasizes studies on the economics of substance use, the economics of obesity, economic models of the determinants of health, and the determinants of the cost of medical care. Most papers require a subscription and/or a one-time fee. Access a free bulletin on the economics of aging and health that includes reports and working papers from its website. The bulletin is accessible via subscription. (Free to subscribe.) | Website |
| National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) | http://www.cdc.gov/nchs | The National Center for Health Statistics' Website provides access to reports, data, and statistics on a variety of health economics topics: health insurance, economics of access to health care, health care expenditures. Access data tools (i.e., Health Data Interactive, which allows the user to take tables with national health statistics and customize it by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and geographic location) from its Website. | Website |
| U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) | http://www.nlm.nih.gov/services/procedcosts.html | The U.S. National Library of Medicine links to a plethora of Websites providing costs for medical procedures, disaggregated by state. Of note, NLM has a health economics self-study course, accessible at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/edu/healthecon/01_he_intro.html. | Website |
| New York Times Prescriptions Blog | http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/ | In Prescriptions, news in the health care industry, including coverage of patients, insurers, medical professionals and drug-makers, is tracked. The blog takes stock of new developments emanating from the health care law mandates, chronicling the many industry segments as they evolve. | Blog |
| OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) Health Data |
http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2649_34631_12968734_1_1_1_37407,00.html |
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Health Data section provides access to statistics and indicators on health and health systems across OECD countries. | Website |
| RAND Health (Health Economics and Financing Program) | http://www.rand.org/health/research/current-studies/health-economics-and-financing.html | The RAND Corporation is at the forefront of research on health insurance and managed care, conducting high-profile studies on a variety of topics, including the influence of insurance coverage on access to health care and on health outcomes. RAND’s 15-year Health Insurance Experiment, which began in 1971, is considered the most important study of health insurance ever conducted, laying the groundwork for future research on health care quality and coverage and on managed care. From its Website, access studies on health care costs and delivery, insurance costs, economic incentives and reimbursement policies, etc. | Website |
| Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | http://www.rwjf.org | The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is a non-profit, grant-making, and research organization. Access reports and data on health economics topics such as health insurance, access to care, and health care and prescription drug costs from its Website. | Website |
| Social Science Research Network (SSRN)/Health Economics Network (HEN) | http://ssrn.com/hen/index.html | The Social Science Research Network's objective is to provide worldwide distribution of research to authors and their readers and to facilitate communication among them at the lowest possible cost. Authors can upload papers without charge, and any paper an author uploads to SSRN is downloadable for free, worldwide. SSRN also provides free subscriptions to all of our abstracting journals to users in developing countries on request. The vast majority of downloads of papers from the SSRN eLibrary are free. Access HEN papers, job announcements, abstracting e-journals, etc. from the Website. | Website/Alert Service |
| Urban Institute (UI) | http://www.urban.org | The Urban Institute compiles detailed state and national data on insurance coverage and analyzes Medicare, Medicaid, and health care reform options. Access reports on various issues in health economics, mainly focusing on insurance, from its Website. | Website |
| Wall Street Journal Health Blog | http://blogs.wsj.com/health/ | The Wall Street Journal Health Blog offers news and analysis on health and the business of health. The blog is written by Katherine Hobson and includes contributions from staffers at The Wall Street Journal, WSJ.com, and Dow Jones Newswires. It covers a variety of topics that involve health economics. | Blog |
| World Health Organization (WHO)/WHO-CHOICE | http://www.who.int/en/ or http://www.who.int/choice/en/ | As noted on the World Health Organization's Website, a critical component of health financing policy is to ensure the available resources are used equitably and efficiently. WHO-CHOICE contributes to this evidence base by assembling regional databases on the costs, impact on population health and cost-effectiveness of key health interventions. It also provides a contextualization tool which makes it possible to adapt regional results to the country level. This work started in 1998 with the development of standard tools and methods which have been used to generate the regional databases. | Website/Database |
Section Three - Expert Panels
Table A: Librarian Expert Panel
| Nancy Allee Deputy Director University of Michigan, Health Sciences Library |
Renee’ McCullough Head Librarian Information Resources Center AHRQ |
| Debra Berlanstein Head of Reference & Research Services Health Sciences & Human Services Library University of Maryland |
Caryn McManus Deputy Librarian Information Resources Center AHRQ |
| Judith Eannarino* Head, Selection and Acquisitions Section National Library of Medicine |
Nancy Minter Library Director Urban Institute |
| Alexandra Gomes Associate Director for Education, Information, and Technology Services Himmelfarb Library George Washington University Medical Center |
Robert M Shapiro II Clinical Reference Librarian University of Kentucky, Medical Center Library |
| Gail Kouril Library Manager RAND |
Annette Totten Research Faculty Oregon Health & Science University |
| Anne Linton Director Himmelfarb Library George Washington University Medical Center |
*Non-voting panelist.
Table B: Health Economics Expert Panel
| Susan Busch Yale University |
Catherine McLaughlin Mathematica |
| Steve Cohen AHRQ |
Daniel Polsky University of Pennsylvania |
| Jose Escarce University of California, Los Angeles |
Daniel Mullins University of Maryland |
| Thomas Getzen Temple University and International Health Economics Association |
Tom Rice University of California, Los Angeles |
| Julie Glanville University of York, UK |
Darryl Gaskin Johns Hopkins University |
| Brad Herring Johns Hopkins University |
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1Arnould, R. Dr. (Executive Director, American Society of Health Economists, Washington, DC). Definition of health economics [Internet]. Message to Virginia Van Horne (Contractor, National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD), 2010 Nov 12 [cited 2010 Nov 15]. [1paragraph].
