Questions of health economics are becoming increasingly important in our work. One focus is the methodological support of clinical studies, in particular for digital health applications. Anyone wishing to have such an application listed in the DiGA directory of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) must demonstrate its positive effect on care in a comparative study. The requirements are demanding, and many projects fail not because of the product but because of the study design.
Here we support manufacturers as an independent methodological authority on the client’s side, from selecting the clinical research organisation, through the study design, to the critical review of results. Our attention is on those points where statistical significance and clinical relevance diverge.
We also address methodological challenges in analysing medical panel and register data. For example, we worked on questions of weighting in the Dental Practice Panel of the Central Research Institute of Ambulatory Health Care in Germany, where voluntary participation by practices can lead to biased results.
Health is also a topic of growing importance in working life and thus lies at the interface with our focus on labour economics. How labour market measures affect health, how body weight and career success are related, what health costs strenuous working conditions impose, and how the pandemic affected the mental health of the self-employed: on all of these questions we have our own research, which we draw on in evaluations where health plays a role as an outcome or as an explanatory factor.
