The first question in anyone’s mind reading the fourth edition of any book will be ‘What has changed from previous editions?’ The most obvious change, in keeping with the tradition we have maintained since the outset, is the addition of a new coauthor, Karl Claxton. Like all those before him, Karl has questioned aspects of the work and provoked changes which otherwise may not have been made.The other change, of course, is that the field itself has moved on in the 10 years since the last edition. The new edition reflects these changes. Chapters 5 and 6, on measuring and valuing effects, reflect the growth in the literature on the measurement of health gain and other benefits of health care. In addition, we include two new chapters (10 and 11) discussing the methods of evidence synthesis and characterizing uncertainty, given their growing importance in economic evaluation.

任何人在阅读第四版的书时，第一个问题就是“与以前的版本相比有什么变化？”？“最明显的变化，与我们从一开始就保持的传统保持一致，就是增加了一位新的合著者，卡尔·克莱斯顿。像所有在他之前的人一样，卡尔对工作的各个方面提出了质疑，并引发了一些其他方面可能不会发生的变化做的。那个当然，另一个变化是，自上一个版本以来的10年里，这个领域本身已经有所发展。新版反映了这些变化。第5章和第6章，关于衡量和评价效果，反映了有关衡量健康收益和其他保健益处的文献的增长情况。此外，我们包括两个新的章节（10和11），讨论证据合成和表征不确定性的方法，因为它们在经济评估中越来越重要。