In most societies resources are insufficient to provide everyone with all the health care they want. In practice, this means that some people are given priority over others. On what basis should priority be given? In this paper we are interested in the general public's views on this question. We set out to synthesis what the literature has found as a whole regarding which attributes or factors the general public think should count in priority setting and what weight they should receive. A systematic review was undertaken (in August 2014) to address these questions based on empirical studies that elicited stated preferences from the general public. Sixty four studies, applying eight methods, spanning five continents met the inclusion criteria. Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) and Person Trade-off (PTO) were the most popular standard methods for preference elicitation, but only 34% of all studies calculated distributional weights, mainly using PTO. While there is heterogeneity, results suggest the young are favoured over the old, the more severely ill are favoured over the less severely ill, and people with self-induced illness or high socioeconomic status tend to receive lower priority. In those studies that considered health gain, larger gain is universally preferred, but at a diminishing rate. Evidence from the small number of studies that explored preferences over different components of health gain suggests life extension is favoured over quality of life enhancement; however this may be reversed at the end of life. The majority of studies that investigated end of life care found weak/no support for providing a premium for such care. The review highlights considerable heterogeneity in both methods and results. Further methodological work is needed to achieve the goal of deriving robust distributional weights for use in health care priority setting.

Based on the study sample and the modelled attributes, the overall profiles of the new oral anticoagulants were preferred to warfarin as their cost decreased. Public subsidisation and the development of antidotes (such as vitamin K for warfarin) for the new oral anticoagulants may have a positive effect on the under-treatment of AF.

When compared to remaining on a waitlist, take-home self-administered buprenorphine-naloxone treatment is associated with significant reductions in heroin use for people with DSM-IV-TR heroin dependence. This cost-effective approach may be an efficient strategy to enhance treatment capacity.

This review found trust in the clinical evidence and, where applicable, cost-effectiveness were important for decision makers. Many methodological differences likely contributed to the diversity in some of the other findings across studies of the same committee. Further work is needed to better understand how competing factors are valued by different HTA committees.

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Background and Objectives Blood services are tasked with efficiently maintaining a reliable blood supply, and there has been much debate over the use of incentives to motivate prosocial activities. Thus, it is important to understand the relative effectiveness of interventions for increasing donations. Materials and MethodsThis systematic review used a broad search strategy to identify randomized controlled trials comparing interventions for increasing blood donations. After full-text review, 28 trials from 25 published articles were included. Sufficient data for meta-analysis were available from 27 trials. Monetary incentives were assumed to be equivalent regardless of value, and nonmonetary incentives were assumed to be equivalent regardless of type. Nonincentive-based interventions identified included existing practice, letters, telephone calls, questionnaires, and the combination of a letter & telephone call. A network meta-analysis was used to pool the results from identified trials. A subgroup analysis was performed in populations of donors and non-donors as sensitivity analyses. ResultsThe best performing interventions were letter & telephone call and telephone call-only with odds ratios of 3Á08 (95% CI: 1Á99, 4Á75) and 1Á99 (95% CI: 1Á47, 2Á69) compared to existing practice, respectively. With considerable uncertainty around the pooled effect, we found no evidence that monetary incentives were effective at increasing donations compared to existing practice. Non-monetary incentives were only effective in the donor subgroup. Conclusion When pooling across modes of interventions, letter & telephone calland telephone call-only are effective at increasing blood donations. The effectiveness of incentives remains unclear with limited, disparate evidence identified.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to test the effectiveness of a tailored quitline tobacco treatment (‘Quitlink’) among people receiving support for mental health conditions. Methods: We employed a prospective, cluster-randomised, open, blinded endpoint design to compare a control condition to our ‘Quitlink’ intervention. Both conditions received a brief intervention delivered by a peer researcher. Control participants received no further intervention. Quitlink participants were referred to a tailored 8-week quitline intervention delivered by dedicated Quitline counsellors plus combination nicotine replacement therapy. The primary outcome was self-reported 6 months continuous abstinence from end of treatment (8 months from baseline). Secondary outcomes included additional smoking outcomes, mental health symptoms, substance use and quality of life. A within-trial economic evaluation was conducted. Results: In total, 110 participants were recruited over 26 months and 91 had confirmed outcomes at 8 months post baseline. There was a difference in self-reported prolonged abstinence at 8-month follow-up between Quitlink (16%, n = 6) and control (2%, n = 1) conditions, which was not statistically significant (OR = 8.33 [0.52, 132.09] p = 0.131 available case). There was a significant difference in favour of the Quitlink condition on 7-day point prevalence at 2 months (OR = 8.06 [1.27, 51.00] p = 0.027 available case). Quitlink costs AU$9231 per additional quit achieved. Conclusion: The Quitlink intervention did not result in significantly higher rates of prolonged abstinence at 8 months post baseline. However, engagement rates and satisfaction with the ‘Quitlink’ intervention were high. While underpowered, the Quitlink intervention shows promise. A powered trial to determine its effectiveness for improving long-term cessation is warranted.