Goal: to identify, highlight, and promote appropriate and novel approaches to health outcomes metrics [including health econometrics] used in pharmacoeconomics and outcomes research.

Overview:
Health outcomes metrics is concerned with the tasks of developing and applying quantitative or statistical methods to the study and elucidation of health outcomes research. Health outcomes metrics combines principles of outcomes research with statistics to analyze and test relationships. Theoretical health outcomes metrics considers questions about the statistical properties of estimators and tests, while applied health outcomes metrics is concerned with the application of health outcomes metrics methods to assess theories.

Although many health outcomes metrics methods represent applications of standard statistical models, there are some special features of health outcomes data that distinguish health outcomes metrics from other branches of statistics. Health outcomes data are generally observational, rather than being derived from controlled experiments. Because health outcomes units, which includes clinical, economic, as well as patient-reported outcomes, interact with each other, the observed data tend to reflect a complex health outcomes equilibrium rather than simple behavioral relationships based on preferences or technology. Consequently, the field of health outcomes metrics has developed methods for identification and estimation of simultaneous equation models. These methods allow researchers to make causal inferences in the absence of controlled experiments.