ABSTRACT
The phrase ‘people should have access to an adequate level of health care’ is commonly quoted and it rests on what people think is important. In this paper relating to the assessment of the benefits of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other related technologies this statement gives rise to the fundamental question ‘How important do we think reproduction and having healthy children is?’ In economics, this is translated to ‘Are the benefits of IVF and other related technologies worth the cost?’, and the issue of importance is tied up with the definition of benefit. Health economists address this issue of worth by comparing the costs and benefits of health care programmes within an economic evaluation framework. In order to do this, information is required on the resources used by IVF and related technologies and the associated benefits that would be obtained from such resource use. Only when this information is available, can a decision be made as to which combination (if any) of IVF and related technologies will maximise benefit from a given budget.
