Discrete Choice Experiments

Due to increasing healthcare costs across the world, limited resources have to be spent wisely. Considering the necessary, optimal provision financing of healthcare, economic techniques have a great potential to provide additional evidence to more traditional methodologies. One recently developed and adopted approach in health economics is the discrete choice experiment (DCE), which assumes that individual decisions with regard to a good or a service are determined by the attributes and characteristics of that good or service. DCE is a quantitative methodology for valuing different factors that are assumed to affect an outcome. DCE describes, explains, and predicts choices among people between two or more discrete alternatives. Unlike traditional ranking and rating exercises, DCE provides information on the strength of preference, trade-offs, or probability of take-up. Discrete choice models statistically relate the choice made by each participant to the attributes of that person as well as the attributes of the alternatives made available to that participant. In general, the models are often used to investigate how people's choices differ among participants with different backgrounds or between experimental manipulations.