Two Day Course
WinBUGS in Health Economic Evaluations
MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, UK
4th & 5th December 2007
_http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bayescost/_
* This course is intended to provide an introduction to Bayesian
analysis and MCMC methods using WinBUGS, as applied to
cost-effectiveness analysis and typical models used in health-economic
evaluations.
* The emphasis throughout will be on practical examples: software and
code to carry out all the analyses will be provided.
* We shall assume a basic knowledge of standard methods in health
economics, and familiarity with a range of probability distributions,
regression analysis, Markov models and random-effects meta-analysis.
* No knowledge of WinBUGS will be assumed.
Day 1: 4 December 2007, 10.00 to 17.15
1. Introduction to WinBUGS for Monte Carlo analysis: The Bayesian
paradigm. Prior distributions. Predictions. Introduction to
distributions to be used: beta, normal, uniform, gamma, log-normal,
Poisson. Forward sampling. Introduction to Monte Carlo (MC) in WinBUGS.
Inference on any functions of parameters.
2. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis in WinBUGS: Probabilistic
sensitivity analysis (PSA). Cost-effectiveness plane. INB. CEACs. PSA in
WinBUGS. Simple Markov models.
3. Introduction to MCMC in WinBUGS: Bayes theorem for learning from
data. Introduction to Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and WinBUGS. Ranking.
4. Cost data: Different models. Model fit. Predictions. Inference on
mean. Sensitivity to tail-area assumptions.
Day 2: 5 December 2007, 9.30 to 17.00
5. Cost-utility data: Bivariate posterior distributions. Baseline
adjustment. Subgroups.
6. Markov models: Estimating transition probabilities. Setting up a
Markov model in WinBUGS. Cost-effectiveness analysis. One step PSA.
7. Evidence synthesis in WinBUGS: Meta-analysis. Random-effects.
Indirect comparisons. Multiple sources of evidence. Evidence synthesis
applied to Markov models. Model fit: DIC. Conflict of evidence.
Sensitivity to alternative modelling assumptions.
8. Advanced topic: Running WinBUGS with R: OpenBUGS. R2WinBUGS. BRugs.
CODA. Contour plots.
Faculty
* Dr David Spiegelhalter - MRC Biostatistics Unit, UK
* Dr Richard Nixon - Novartis AG, Switzerland
_http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bayescost/_
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David Spiegelhalter
Senior Scientist
MRC Biostatistics Unit
Institute of Public health
Robinson Way
Cambridge CB2 0SR
UK
Tel: (0)1223 330373
Fax: (0)1223 330388
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