OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to estimate and assess the current human capacity and gaps in economic evaluation (EE) among researchers and policy makers in Thailand.  METHODS: Potential policy makers were randomly selected from members of the Management Committees of Provincial Health Offices and members of the public and private hospital Drug and Therapeutic Committees throughout Thailand.  Potential researchers were obtained from all Thai academic and private research organizations involved in teaching or research in EE.  The questionnaire covered demographic characteristics, their knowledge and experience, training needs, importance, and challenges in relation to EE.  Self-administered postal questionnaire survey was conducted in April 2007.  A univariate analysis was applied to evaluate the data.  RESULTS: The response rate was 30%.  Mean age of respondents was 37 years, and all had at least Bachelor degree.  Respondents were mostly health practitioners (46%), policy makers (34%), and researchers (20%).  About 70% had never experienced EE training.  Most respondents had never heard about EE terminologies such as incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (77%), sensitivity analysis (68%) or discounting (67%).  Approximately 90% were interested in attending short-course EE training and 84% considered that cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) was very important for making decision on national drug formularies.  Challenges for rational and evidence based policy decisions are the lack of EE studies in Thailand (64%) and the availability of CEA threshold which suits the Thai socio-economic and health systems context (62%).  Among researchers, challenges were the lack of EE methodological skill (74%), knowledge (69%), and critical mass of researchers (67%).   CONCLUSIONS: In Thailand, even though EE is one of the essential information for health policy decision making, researchers and policy makers still lack of the EE knowledge and skill.  Finding from this study contributes to the short and long term plan for research capacity building and strengthening in EE of healthcare.