On 17 June, the NIHR SafetyNet Health Economics Working Group (HEWG) joined forces with Erasmus University for an engaging online seminar delivered by Stella Marceta, PhD candidate in Health Economics at the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management. 

Medical treatments often list numerous side effects, making effective risk communication essential when eliciting patient preferences. This special edition seminar, hosted by Professor Rachel Elliott, Health Economics lead of the NIHR Greater Manchester PSRC, explored how the categorisation and labelling of multiple side effects—based on severity versus rate of occurrence—influence patient preferences and decision-making.

Along the seminar, Stella explained how Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) help us understand the trade-offs patients make between treatment benefits and side-effect worries. She showed that simply labelling side effects by “mild” or “severe” versus “very common” or “very rare” can nudge people’s choices in surprising ways.