Health technology assessment (HTA) frameworks appraise the value of technologies – be they drugs, devices, procedures or services – to inform policy decision-making and resource allocation amongst alternatives within publicly funded health systems. The prevailing principles and metrics by which HTA is conducted were designed with adult health conditions and treatments in mind. The evidentiary and normative dimensions of HTA frameworks may have unique repercussions for drug policy and coverage decisions in children, but their relevance to child health has received almost no critical scrutiny in either academic or policy circles. Approaches to paediatric drug coverage approval and access currently lack child-specific data on social values and priorities, a core component of HTA in most countries with public drug funding programs, including Canada.
This thesis presents a mixed methods study of social values relevant to child HTA and drug policymaking in publicly funded health systems, comprised of three original scientific contributions. The first of these is a critical interpretive synthesis (CIS) of the academic literature on the moral dimensions of child health and social policymaking across a range of disciplines and policy domains. The second is a grounded theory analysis of qualitative interviews with diverse health system stakeholders on the social values and health system factors relevant to child HTA and drug funding policy in Canada. The third is a stated preference survey of the general public that assesses societal preferences for health resource allocation to children as compared to adults, to generate evidence for priority setting on health technologies within Canada’s publicly funded health system. Together, these studies yield specific knowledge about the policy landscape for child health technologies in Canada, broad conceptual insights into the normative and methodological dimensions of child HTA, and a foundational understanding of the social values relevant to drug policy decisions for children. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Drug research, development and policy have historically excluded children. One area of persistent neglect is public policy on funding for paediatric medicines. In most publicly funded health systems, including Canada’s, decisions about which drugs to cover are made through a formal process called health technology assessment (HTA). This dissertation examines the role and challenges of HTA as applied to child health technologies, with a focus on the social values that inform drug policy for children. It addresses existing gaps in knowledge through the integration of insights from: 1) a comprehensive review of the academic literature on the moral dimensions of child health and social policymaking; 2) in-depth qualitative analysis of the HTA and drug policy environments for children in Canada, employing Ontario as a case study; and 3) a survey of the Canadian public on health system resource allocation for children. Together, these studies generate a detailed picture of the Canadian policy landscape for child health technologies, insights into the fit of current HTA approaches to the realities of child health and illness, and a foundational understanding of the social values relevant to drug policy decisions for children.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/22901 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Denburg, Avram Ezra |
| Contributors | Abelson, Julia, Health Policy |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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