What is an Economic Evaluation?

Economic evaluations include a range of comparative methods to help evaluate choices or trade-offs between costs and benefits. At the heart of economic evaluation is the concept of opportunity cost. To foster efficient deployment of limited resources, we measure “opportunity costs” to help inform choices. We want to understand what is the best value for money. In the most basic sense: Cost is what you pay—value is what you get—the benefit.

The slide deck below, developed by Dr. Carol Levin (SEEMS-Nutrition Project Director), is an excellent introduction to economic evaluations. Pop-up the slides in a new browser to view the full deck and download a copy.

For more information on costing resources, visit the Resources page.