What is sensitivity analysis?
Author: Matthew Taylor and Alex Filby
While economic models are a useful tool to aid decision-making in healthcare, there remain several types of uncertainty associated with this method of analysis.
One-way sensitivity analysis allows a reviewer to assess the impact that changes in a certain parameter will have on the model’s conclusions.
Sensitivity analysis can help the reviewer to determine which parameters are the key drivers of a model’s results.
By reporting extensive outputs from sensitivity analysis, modellers are able to consider a wide range of scenarios and, as such, can increase the level of confidence that a reviewer will have in the model.
Probabilistic sensitivity analysis provides a useful technique to quantify the level of confidence that a decision-maker has in the conclusions of an economic evaluation.
