1. Introduction

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Introduction

Health technology development (medicine/treatment/device/vaccine) relies heavily on research – the gathering of information or data to produce new knowledge. This is driven by the need to provide evidence for:

  • Decision makers in a health system about the effectiveness of a new therapy in a real world setting along with information about the costs and expected use of the therapy.

Research that is used in medicines development or in any other discipline (e.g. anthropology, sociology, astronomy, chemistry) can be classified as either ‘qualitative’ or ‘quantitative’. This lesson deals with the concepts of quantitative and qualitative research with respect to HTA.