Net health benefit (NHB) is a summary statistic that represents the impact on population health of introducing a new intervention. Net health benefit assumes that ‘lost health’ can be estimated as an ‘opportunity cost’ to represent the health that is foregone elsewhere as a result of moving funding to pay for a new intervention. NHB is usually measured using QALYs and is calculated by: incremental gain in QALYs – (incremental cost / opportunity cost threshold). A positive NHB implies that overall population health would be increased as a result of the new intervention, whilst a negative NHB implies that the health benefits of the new intervention are not sufficient to outweigh the health losses that arise from the healthcare that ceases to be funded in order to fund the new treatment.
How to cite: Net Health Benefit [online]. (2016). York; York Health Economics Consortium; 2016. http://www.yhec.co.uk/glossary/net-health-benefit/