In their recent editorial, Baltussen and colleagues provide a concise summary of the prevailing discourse on priority-setting in health policy. Their perspective is entirely consistent with current practice, yet they unintentionally demonstrate the narrowness and moral precariousness of that discourse and practice. I respond with demonstrations of the importance of ‘interrogating scarcity’ in a...

Background To date, research on priority-setting for new vaccines has not adequately explored the influence of the global, national and sub-national levels of decision-making or contextual issues such as political pressure and stakeholder influence and power. Using Kapiriri and Martin’s conceptual framework, this paper evaluates priority setting for new vaccines in Uganda at national and sub-na...

This paper describes evidence-based priority setting and resource allocation undertaken by a Division of the Women's & Children's Hospital, Adelaide during 1998-1999. We describe the methods used to combine program budgeting marginal analysis (PBMA), evidence based and "community values" approaches into one decision-making framework. Previous organisational changes involving the formation of mu...

the topic of how cost-effectiveness information informs priority setting in healthcare remains important to both policy and practice. this commentary considers the study carried out by eckard and colleagues in sweden. in it we distinguish between the conditions at national and local levels and put forward some recommendations for research into local priority setting in particular.