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DISCRETE CHOICE EXPERIMENT WORKSHOP
I was grateful to be invited to attend the discrete choice experiment (DCE) workshop organized by the Cancer Research Economics Support Team (CREST) in Sydney on the 11th of November 2019 . This workshop was chaired by the eminent A/Prof Richard De Abreu Lourenço . Other faculty included prominent experts in the field, Prof Stephen Goodall and Prof Debbie Street .
DCEs are a systematic survey method that can be used as a powerful tool to evaluate health care interventions and their outcomes . DCEs utilize a unique design where each survey question is presented as a scenario with 2 varying sets of features or attributes . By pitching one hypothetical scenario against another, respondents are asked to indicate their preference and acceptability of competing alternatives .
The lucky participants of this workshop were exposed to a jam-packed day of learning that incorporated both didactic teaching as well as interactive sessions . The workshop program was split into 5 sessions: introduction to DCEs, attribute selection and vignette development, designing experiments and survey construction, data analysis, and last but not least, the practicalities of DCEs . A particularly useful activity was the opportunity to read and dissect a DCE publication . We were then invited to debate, discuss, and answer questions relating to our DCE journal article in small groups . The sheer amount and complexity of data presented in the papers provided me with important insights on the robust research methods involved with designing, analysing, and reporting DCEs . I have to admit that the statistical aspects of analyses which included models such as mixed logit, multinomial logit, and random effects logit, were somewhat daunting! Thankfully, all the presenters were patient teachers who did not mind the many questions put forth by the group of enthusiastic participants . I thoroughly enjoyed being introduced to this impactful research instrument on this day. I relished spending a productive day learning about the key aspects of designing a discrete choice experiment (DCE), meeting participants of different backgrounds, and familiarising myself with viewing healthcare from a health economics perspective. As ANZUP fellow, I am keen to be able to make positive contributions to all ANZUP research endeavours. Armed with my newfound knowledge, I look forward to potential collaborative opportunities with the CREST team on future ANZUP projects that may benefit from the incorporation of stated preference data.
