The availability of and applications utilizing genetic data in health economics research are expanding rapidly. It is a reasonable speculation that health economists who lack knowledge of basic genetics will be increasingly disadvantaged as they read a literature that reports with growing frequency findings based on such data.
As a means to introduce some important basic themes and analytical considerations to our readership, this issue of Health Economics presents a symposium comprising three papers by leaders in this emerging field.
The paper by John Cawley, Euna Han, and Edward Norton was submitted initially and independently as an Editorial. At this point the idea of a mini-symposium on the topic arose. Because of their active and interesting work in various dimensions of this topic area, Jason Fletcher and Stephanie von Hinke Kessler Scholder were then each approached about their interests in providing contributions to the symposium.
All three papers are Editorials, meaning that they have been reviewed by the Health Economics Editorial Board but have not been subjected to standard full Health Economics peer review. For many of our readers much of even the basic terminology and concepts of genetics may be foreign. A variety of useful online glossaries and guides are available. Three we have found helpful (and that were active as of the date of publication) are: