Courts and priority-setting in health care: requiring, controlling, limiting and circumventing health technology assessment via adjudication

• Grant number: 19/15565-0
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: October 01, 2019 - September 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Law - Public Law
• Principal researcher: Daniel Wei Liang Wang
• Grantee: Daniel Wei Liang Wang
• Home Institution: Escola de Direito de São Paulo (DIREITO GV). Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project will analyse the relationship between courts and health technology assessment (HTA) systems that inform health systems' decisions about the funding of new technologies. It will first analyse the possibility that the judicialization of health care rationing decisions can contribute to the creation of HTA systems. Four case-studies will be analysed - Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and England - where there is evidence that litigation or health treatments help explain the creation of HTA systems. Second, it will analyse the courts' different approaches when judging access to treatments cases to understand how each approach can health systems and HTA in different ways. Courts can (i) demand quality, consistency and procedural fairness in HTA (England), (ii) limit the use scope of HTA by, for instance, ruling out the use of economic criteria in priority-setting (Colombia), (iii) bypass priority-setting decisions and allow individual access to treatments not recommended by HTA (Brazil), or (iv) reassess technologies with the support of experts working under the supervision of judges (Costa Rica). This research is particularly important in the context of growing health care costs and the increasing involvement of courts in decisions related to the allocation of resources in health. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

WANG, DANIEL WEI LIANG; MORIBE, GABRIELA; ARRUDA,; M., ANA LUIZA GAJARDONI DE. Is Mandatory Vaccination for COVID-19 Constitutional under Brazilian Law?. Health and Human Rights, v. 23, n. 1, p. 163-174, JUN 2021. Web of Science Citations: 0.

WANG, DANIEL WEI LIANG. Priority-setting and the Right to Health: Synergies and Tensions on the Path to Universal Health Coverage. HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW, v. 20, n. 4, p. 704-724, DEC 2020. Web of Science Citations: 0.

DANIEL WEI LIANG WANG. ARE THE SUS AND THE RIGHT TO HEALTH INCOMPATIBLE WITH UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE? Challenging Misconceptions Around the Concept of UHC in the Public Health Scholarship in Brazil. Novos Estudos - CEBRAP, v. 39, n. 3, p. 599-618, Set. 2020.