Dictionary of Evidence-based Medicine.pdf

130 Dictionary of Evidence-based Medicine
concept using as an example the allocation, by a health authority, of a $lm
budget to two competing claims: provision of day care places or hospital
beds for mentally ill patients. Each day care place costs $500 while a hospital
bed costs $5000. With the allocated budget, the health authority can
provide 2000 day care places or 200 beds. Line BD, the production possibility
frontier, shows the alternative, allocatively efficient combinations,
such as point E, of day care and hospital beds which can be provided. Point
A, on the other hand, is not efficient since day care places can be increased
without decreasing hospital beds and vice versa.
Production possibility frontiers or curves need not be linear and can be
generalized to deal with more than two choices (Phelps CE (1997) Health
economics. 2nd edition. Addison Wesley, Reading, USA).
Prognosis
The likely clinical progress of a patient or disease over time.
Programme effectiveness analysis (see Intention to treat analysis)
Prospective case-control study (see under Case-control study)
Prospective meta-analysis (see under Meta-analysis)
Prospective study (see a/so under Cohort study)
A prospective study is one in which subjects are recruited and followed
forward in time.
Protopathic bias (see under Bias)
Public goods
Pure public goods are those which are characterized by collective property
rights from which no one can be excluded. Examples of such goods are air
quality and sunlight. Those goods are not traded in any organized market.
These goods can be separated from quasi-private goods and pure private
goods. With the latter, individual property rights are assigned, potential
customers can be excluded and the goods are traded competitively and