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Cost–Utility Analysis
- Peter J. Neumann, ScD;
- Richard H. Chapman, SM; and
- Patricia W. Stone, PhD, MPH, RN
- Harvard School of Public Health; Boston, MA 02115 (Neumann, Chapman) University of Rochester; Rochester, NY 14642 (Stone)
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
IN RESPONSE:
We appreciate Brown and colleagues' remarks about the importance of recognizing the diversity of practices used in published cost–utility analyses. We agree that research has supported the reliability and usefulness of the time-tradeoff method. It was not our intention to criticize the time-tradeoff approach or to equate it with the rating scale, which has not demonstrated such reliability (1). The sentence to which the authors refer, and which appears in the glossary accompanying our paper, simply points out that the time-tradeoff approach does not incorporate uncertainty and thus does not technically produce a “utility.”
The purpose of our paper was to document the reporting practices used in cost–utility analyses. Nowhere do we discuss the relative usefulness of various preference-elicitation techniques. The glossary was designed to help readers unfamiliar with the paper's terminology. We did not mean to imply that the time-tradeoff method is invalid or unreliable; to the extent that the sentence in question created any confusion about the matter, we appreciate the authors' noting it.
Peter J. Neumann, ScD
Richard H. Chapman, SM
Harvard School of Public Health; Boston, MA 02115
Patricia W. Stone, PhD, MPH, RN
University of Rochester; Rochester, NY 14642
The Editors welcome submissions for possible publication in the Letters section. Authors of letters should:
•Include no more than 300 words of text, three authors, and five references
•Type with double-spacing
•Send three copies of the letter, an authors' form signed by all authors, and a cover letter describing any conflicts of interest related to the contents of the letter.
Letters commenting on an Annals article will be considered if they are received within 6 weeks of the time the article was published. Only some of the letters received can be published. Published letters are edited and may be shortened; tables and figures are included only selectively. Authors will be notified that the letter has been received. If the letter is selected for publication, the author will be notified about 3 weeks before the publication date. Unpublished letters cannot be returned.
Annals welcomes electronically submitted letters.
- Copyright ©2004 by the American College of Physicians
