PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Aim: Economic evaluations have been increasingly considered in the process of recommendation and reimbursement of vaccines by decision-makers in Europe. This increased importance demands a critical discussion about the methods used in health economic evaluations of vaccines. Method: This paper discusses and summarises the particularities and challenges of health economic evaluations of vaccines illustrated by examples. Results: The particularities of health economic evaluations of vaccines are based on the preventive character of vaccines and on the fact that vaccine-preventable diseases are infectious diseases. These characteristics require particular methods like alternative discounting approaches, dynamic models to analyse the impact of herd effects or serotype replacement as well as specific evaluation strategies. Conclusion: The use of common methods of health economic evaluation for assessing the cost-effectiveness of vaccines might lead to a misinterpretation of the true economic value. This problem can partly be solved by use of specific methodological approaches. However, further research is needed to address some remaining issues.