Moderator
Eberechukwu Onukwugha, MSc, PhD, University of Maryland, Baltimore School of Pharmacy, Baltimore, MD, United States
This podium session brings together four timely studies that advance the measurement and application of the societal perspective in health economic evaluation. Collectively, the presentations address how broader costs and consequences—productivity impacts, health system disruptions, and climate-related health losses—can be rigorously quantified and incorporated into decision-making.
The session begins with a practical framework for estimating productivity loss using U.S. public-use data, offering applied guidance for researchers seeking to operationalize societal cost components. It then presents real-world evidence on the economic burden of maternal health service disruptions in conflict-affected Sahelian Nigeria, highlighting the intersection of instability, access to care, and health outcomes. A third presentation examines a critical gap in the social cost of carbon by valuing health losses attributable to climate change, underscoring the importance of integrating health impacts into climate policy analyses. The session concludes with a systematic analysis of how the “societal perspective” is defined and implemented in ICER assessments of ultra-rare diseases.
Together, these studies demonstrate methodological innovation and practical insights for strengthening comprehensive, policy-relevant economic evaluation across diverse contexts.