Methodological advances in choice experiments and choice models

The use of choice experiments and choice models in health economics has increased rapidly over the past decades, allowing clinical and policy decisions to be informed with insights on public and patient preferences. Because the stakes in these decisions are often high, it is important to continuously scrutinize and improve the methods we use to elicit respondents’ preferences. At the same time, the research landscape of choice modelling is rather fragmented over the main domains of application (i.e., health, transportation, environment, marketing) and, consequently, methodological insights often do not diffuse from one domain to the others. As such, there is still much to learn across domains to improve our practice of choice modelling. 

To this aim, the symposium focuses on bringing methodological advances from other domains to choice modelling in health economics (and vice versa) and features three renowned speakers, who are experts in choice modelling in three different domains:

• Prof. dr. Thijs Dekker (transport economics, University of Leeds)
  'How much preference heterogeneity does the mixed logit model pickup?'
   
• Dr. Marije Schaafsma (environmental economics, VU Amsterdam)
  'Spatial effects in stated preference research'
   
• Dr. John Buckell (health economics, University of Oxford/Evidera)
  'New directions in health-based choice modelling: learning from other disciplines (and not)'

The symposium, funded by the Erasmus Centre for Health Economics Rotterdam (EsCHER), will take place in Room J7-55 of the Bayle Building (Woudestein Campus, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50) and online (Microsoft Teams). For those attending in person, a sandwich lunch is served at 12.00. 

This symposium is organised in relation to the public defence by Sander Boxebeld of the dissertation 'Discrete and Portfolio Choice Experiments: Methodological Considerations and Health Policy Applications' and relates to a key premise of the dissertation: enriching health choice modelling by building on insights from other domains. The defence will take place at 13.00 in the Senaatszaal of Erasmus University Rotterdam, within walking distance of the symposium location. You are welcome to attend the defence as well.