Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards 2022 (CHEERS 2022) Statement: Updated Reporting Guidance for Health Economic Evaluations

Abstract

Health economic evaluations are comparative analyses of alternative courses of action in terms of their costs and consequences. The Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement, published in 2013, was created to ensure health economic evaluations are identifiable, interpretable, and useful for decision making. It was intended as guidance to help authors report accurately which health interventions were being compared and in what context, how the evaluation was undertaken, what the findings were, and other details that may aid readers and reviewers in interpretation and use of the study. The new CHEERS 2022 statement replaces previous CHEERS reporting guidance. It reflects the need for guidance that can be more easily applied to all types of health economic evaluation, new methods and developments in the field, as well as the increased role of stakeholder involvement including patients and the public. It is also broadly applicable to any form of intervention intended to improve the health of individuals or the population, whether simple or complex, and without regard to context (such as health care, public health, education, social care, etc). This summary article presents the new CHEERS 2022 28-item checklist and recommendations for each item. The CHEERS 2022 statement is primarily intended for researchers reporting economic evaluations for peer reviewed journals as well as the peer reviewers and editors assessing them for publication. However, we anticipate familiarity with reporting requirements will be useful for analysts when planning studies. It may also be useful for health technology assessment bodies seeking guidance on reporting, as there is an increasing emphasis on transparency in decision making.

Keywords:

• Health economics
• reporting
• guidelines
• economic evaluation

Transparency

Declaration of funding

Funding to support ongoing meetings was provided by ISPOR - The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research. The funders had no role in considering the study design or in the collection, analysis, interpretation of data, or writing of the report. Funding for DH and the Delphi Panel exercise was provided by 9363980 Canada Inc. SS is part funded by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) West Midlands, the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) Gastrointestinal Infections, and the NIHR HPRU Genomics and Enabling data.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Competing interests

All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form and declare no competing interests.

Acknowledgement

We thank the following who participated in the study:

Provenance and peer review

Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

The Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Advisory Group: Ivett Jakab, Emma Kinloch, Eric Low, Jean Mossman, Declan Noone, Phil Posner, and Jo Watson.

The Editors Advisory Group: Wendy Babidge, Lyn Beamesderfer, Dior Beerens, Chris Carswell, Tillie Cryer, Ana Donnelly, Manuel Espinoza, Dan Greenberg, Wolfgang Greiner, Laura Happe, Mickaël Hiligsmann, Christine Laine, Lin Lee, Ken Lee, Elizabeth Loder, Natalie Pafitis, Julia Robinson Kenneth Stein, Eva Szunyogova, Wim Weber, Timothy Wrightson, and Brian Zikmund-Fisher.

Participants in the Delphi Panel exercise: Marie-Claude Aubin, Marc Berger, John Campbell, Doug Coyle, Matthew Dyer Richard Edlin, Rita Faria, Veronica Gallegos, Alastair Gray, Scott Grosse, Jason Guertin, Dyfrig Hughes, Florencia Hutter, Denny John, Hanin Farhana Kamaruzaman, David Kim, Murray Krahn, Dan Moldaver, Ku Abd Rahim Ku Nurhasni, Daniela Vianna Pachito, Michael Paulden, Clinton Pecenka, Andrés Pichon-Riviere, John Powell, Lisa Prosser, Dean Regier, Anna Ringborg, Rossana Rivas, Chris Sampson, Marisa Santos, Paul Scuffham, Mark Sculpher, Katia Senna, Eldon Spackman, Lotte Steuten, David Tamblyn, Kilgore Trout, Dick Willke, and Torbjorn Wisloff.

Additional ISPOR reviewers who commented on our drafts: Tadesse Abegaz, Alex Kostyuk, Kelly Lenahan, Nan Luo, Joshua Soboil, Richard White, and members of the PPIE.

Thanks to David Moher for initial advice on approach, and a very special final thanks to Elizabeth Molsen.

Contributors: DH is Task Force co-chair and the submitting and corresponding author; MD is a Task Force co-chair. All other authors (FA, EBG, AHB, CC, LC, NC, DG, EL, JM, CDM, SP, RFP, and SS- listed in alphabetical order by surname) and the co-chairs conceived this paper and designed the Delphi survey conducted to inform the guideline content. DH conducted a literature review, administered the Delphi survey and analysed the data for both. DH and MD prepared materials for each meeting and led the drafting and editing of the article. DH, MD, FA, AHB, EBG, CC, LC, NC, DG, EL, JM, CDM, SP, RFP, and SS drafted particular sections of the article. MD and SS led the PPIE advisory group. DH and CC led the Editors Advisory Group. All authors were involved in revising the article critically for important intellectual content. All authors approved the final version of the article. DH is the guarantor of this work. The corresponding author attests that all listed authors meet authorship criteria and that no others meeting the criteria have been omitted.

David Moher served as scientific advisor and reviewed the initial proposal as well as attended initial meetings; all members of the PPIE (Ivett Jakab, Emma Kinloch, Eric Low, Jean Mossman, Declan Noone, Phil Posner, and Jo Watson) critically reviewed the initial checklist and suggested and provided review and advice on subsequent drafts of the checklist and Explanation and Elaboration report. Members of the PPIE were invited to participate in the Delphi Panel exercise. All members of the PPIE, and Delphi Panel were invited to review drafts of the checklist and accompanying report.

Collective publication statement

This article is a joint publication by Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, BJOG, BMC Health Services Research, BMC Medicine, BMC Public Health, BMJ, Clinical Therapeutics, Health Policy Open, International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, Journal of Medical Economics, MDM Policy & Practice, Pharmacoeconomics, The European Journal of Health Economics, Value in Health, and Value in Health Regional (en español). Each publisher holds its own copyright or has licensed the content for use, with the authors retaining copyright. The BMJ managed the peer review process for this article on behalf of all journals.