Book review: Prevention effectiveness – 2nd edition

Edited by Anne Haddix, Steven Tuesch, and Phaedra Corso, Oxford University Press, 2002, US$45, £26.99, 286 pages.

Reviewed by Kevin D. Frick

‍This text is required reading for students in my introductory cost-effectiveness course. Why? Because it combines a discussion of the United States Panel on Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine’s recommendations, general readability, and an introduction to decision analysis.

First, for most students in an introductory course, knowing what the US Panel’s recommendations were and that they were the result of well-reasoned debate is sufficient. The US recommendations are likely to remain relevant to US audiences as they have been the only federal government-based recommendations.

Second, the Haddix et al. text is readable.

Third, the book provides an introduction to decision analysis, an integral part of many cost-effectiveness studies in the literature.

Finally, this is a useful text for an introductory cost-effectiveness course for anyone with no decision analysis background who needs to be aware of US recommendations.