Value of Information for Estimation Instead of Decision-Making

This book is largely about models that describe the consequences of decisions between healthcare policies. However in some settings, particularly in public health, models are simply used to estimate quantities of interest to stakeholders, such as the long-term impacts of reductions in disease risk, without referring to any specific policy. This chapter explains how Value of Information methods can be used to prioritise research in this framework. This involves considering estimation as a decision problem in itself. The ideas involved here connect a range of scientific fields, including mathematical modelling and experimental design as well as health economics.