How to present economic evaluations to non-technical audiences? Randomized trials with professionals and the general population

Background: Cost-effectiveness analyses of health technologies have become a part of the decision-making process in healthcare policies. Nevertheless, economic results are not always presented in comprehensible formats for non-technical audiences, such as the general population, healthcare professionals or decision-makers. The purpose of this study was to observe which formats best convey the key message of an economic evaluation, and which are best received by two different audiences.

Methods: The summary of a hypothetical cost-effectiveness analysis was edited in different formats: infographic, plain language text and video-abstract for the general population; executive summary and policy brief for a specialized population, i.e. clinicians, clinical and non-clinical managers, or methodologists in health-technology assessment. Participants were randomly shown one of the formats, and data on objective and subjective comprehension, and perceived usefulness/acceptability were gathered by means of online questionnaires. Statistical differences between formats within each audience were analysed.

Results: In the general population (N = 324), objective comprehension was statistically significantly better for infographic than for video-abstract (p = 0.005), and for plain text than for video-abstract (p = 0.024). There were no differences in subjective comprehension, but video-abstract was considered statistically significantly more useful to understand the information than plain text (p = 0.011). In the specialized population (N = 100), no statistically significant differences were observed for objective and subjective comprehension, although policy brief was perceived as statistically significantly more useful than executive summary (p = 0.005).

Conclusions: A balance between effectivity of conveying the message and attractivity of the format needs to be sought, to facilitate non-technical audiences' understanding of economic data and, consequently, perceive decision-making processes as more transparent and legitimate. The infographic and policy brief could be robust ways to present economic data to the general public and specialized audience, respectively.