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Health economics in mental health. 1: Principles

Department of Public Health, University of Glasgow, 2 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ

Cameron Stark, Consultant in Public Health Medicine

Highland Health Board, Beechwood Park, Inverness IV2 3HG

^* Correspondence

This is the first of two papers which summarise key concepts in health economics and explains the differences in the various types of economic evaluation published in the economics literature. Examples from the economic analysis of mental health care are used to illustrate the key points. This paper explains the concepts of scarcity, rationing, opportunity cost and efficiency from a health economics perspective, and presents an ethical argument for the use of health economics in making decisions on resource use in mental health care.