Authors: Karen Lee
Reporting standards serve as an important tool when conducting economic evaluations. The reporting of an economic evaluation should be clear and detailed, and the analysis and results should be presented in a transparent manner. Sufficient information should be provided to enable a critical assessment of the evaluation, to determine the applicability of the information to the user’s specific context. As such, the format of the economic evaluation should be well structured and easy to follow.
The use of checklists helps to ensure all key elements are included in the evaluation and presented within a publication. Researchers can use the structured reporting format highlighted in CADTH’s Guidelines for Economic Evaluation of Health Technologies: Canada (Appendix 1),1 which assists with consistent presentation that is organized clearly to facilitate review and comparison by decision-makers. Other reporting tools and formats have been published2,3 and may be used as alternatives.
The most recent and commonly cited checklist is the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) checklist (2022).4 This 28-item reporting checklist has been developed in consultation with a broad range of stakeholders and used in a number of different settings. Seven bilingual experts in the field of health economic evaluation, in Canada and the US, undertook a French translation of the checklist to facilitate greater use of the reporting standards.5 This translation will allow further consistency of reporting of economic evaluations in the international health technology assessment community.
While reporting guidelines ensure consistency in reporting and promote transparency in the methodology, they do not provide the tools to determine whether each component was done correctly or in a manner relevant to the specific context. To do so, readers should use other tools to assist their appraisal.
1.Guidelines for the Economic Evaluation of Health Technologies. Canada — 4th Edition. https://www.cadth.ca/guidelines-economic-evaluation-health-technologies-canada-4th-edition
2.Husereau D, Drummond M, Petrou S, et al; CHEERS Task Force. Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement. Cost Eff Resour Alloc. 2013;11(1):6.PubMed
3.Drummond MF, Jefferson TO; The BMJ Economic Evaluation Working Party. Guidelines for authors and peer reviewers of economic submissions to the BMJ. BMJ. 1996;313(7052):275-283.PubMed
4.Husereau D, Drummond M, Augustovski F, et al; CHEERS 2022 ISPOR Good Research Practices Task Force. Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards 2022 (CHEERS 2022) statement: updated reporting guidance for health economic evaluations. BMJ. 2022;376:e067975.PubMed
5.Guertin JR, Bénard É, Aubin M-C, et al. French Translation of the 2022 Version of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) Statement. Can J Health Technol. 2023;3:10.