PhD defence S. (Sebastian) Neumann-Böhme

Summary:

The discipline of health economics is broadly concerned with the efficient and equitable allocation of resources in the health(care) system. It investigates how the (health) benefits from the given resources can be maximised and how a fair distribution of the benefits can be ensured. The specialisation of behavioural health economics complements the field by combining insights from economics and psychology, applied to the field of healthcare. This thesis consists of studies in behavioural health economics which examine the effects of preferences and perceptions on decision-making. It argues that humans are prone to reasoning failures, which can lead to non-optimal outcomes in health-related decisions.

Rising healthcare costs require decision-makers to allocate funds according to the preferences of the population that funds the healthcare system. Especially new and often expensive treatment options require policymakers to make decisions on what to cover, given that maintaining the affordability of healthcare systems is also an important goal. Health economic evaluations are used to inform such funding decisions. However, some of the elements in economic evaluations depend on the assumption that individuals are rational decision-makers that maximise their utility. These assumptions are problematic as they probably do not hold when eliciting health state preferences in a general population sample.