Abstract
Assessment of evidence is becoming a centralpart of health policy decisions – not least inlimit setting decisions. Limit-settingdecisions can be defined as the withholding ofpotentially beneficial health care. Thisarticle seeks to explore the value choicesrelated to the use of evidence in limit-settingdecisions at the political level. To betterspecify the important but restricted role ofevidence in such decisions, the value choicesof relevance are discussed explicitly. Fourcriteria are often considered when settinglimits:
1. The severity of disease if untreated or treatedby standard care2. The effectiveness of the new technology3. The cost-effectiveness of the new technology4. The quality of evidence on (1)–(3)
The production and assessment of evidence isimportant for each criterion, but severalpoints are identified where the practice ofevidence-based medicine could be furtherdeveloped to capture a broader spectrum ofethical and political concerns that suchdecisions naturally evoke among citizens.
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Norheim, O.F. The Role of Evidence in Health Policy Making: A Normative Perspective. Health Care Analysis 10, 309–317 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022955909060
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022955909060