Cost-benefit analysis is a technique used to compare the costs and benefits of a technology in purely monetary terms and when used to assess health this requires assignment of a monetary value to human life.
This analysis is the only type of economic evaluation with a clear decision rule, i.e. if the total monetary value of benefits from a technology outweighs the total cost, the technology should be adopted. This type of analysis provides decision makers with an understanding of two fundamental questions. Firstly, how people value the improvements in health outcomes achieved from using a service and secondly, whether people using the service place sufficient value on the improvement in health outcomes to justify the price.