OBJECTIVES: Economic evaluation is a multidisciplinary activity, requiring both methodological and topic expertise, often necessitating collaboration to complete an analysis. The aim of this study was to look at the different broad groups publishing in health economics, and to explore the extent to which authors from different groups collaborate on papers.

METHODS: We searched Pubmed for published papers that included cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analyses and made reference to the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in the abstract. We included studies with two or more authors with affiliation details given for all authors. We coded affiliations based on geography and type, classified as academic, HTA agency, clinical, consultancy, industry, or research. We applied social network methods to analyse networks of collaboration.

RESULTS: We identified 2,426 papers for inclusion. Collaboration between at least two affiliation groups occurred in 66% of papers. Seventy eight percent of papers involved academic authors, and 52% involved clinical authors. Industry (20%) and HTA agencies (5%) contributed less. The most common type of collaboration was between academic and clinical authors (37%), followed by academic and research groups (20%). HTA agency staff almost always collaborated with other groups, but rarely with industry. Fifty six percent of papers involving industry also involved consultancy authors. Thirty five percent of papers included authors from the US, 20% from the UK, and 13% from China. Sixty eight percent of papers included authors from one country only. The most common international collaborations were between the US and the UK (5%) and the US and Canada (3%).

CONCLUSIONS: Published studies of cost-effectiveness and cost-utility are dominated by academic researchers and come mainly from the US and the UK. Industry are involved in a fifth of published studies, which may raise concerns about risk of bias in a substantial portion of evaluations.