Stuctured expert elicitation (SEE)

Structured expert elicitation (SEE) is a formal, quantitative process for gathering expert opinions on uncertain parameters, especially when empirical data is limited or unavailable. In health economics, it is used to quantify expert beliefs about parameters such as the long-term effectiveness of a new drug, the likelihood of rare side effects, or the natural progression of a disease.

The primary goal of SEE is to make expert judgment more transparent, robust, and less prone to cognitive biases. Unlike informal methods (e.g. ad hoc conversations), a structured process typically involves:

• Identifying and selecting experts with the relevant knowledge.
• Defining the specific questions and quantities to be estimated.
• Using a formal protocol to collect the judgments, often in the form of a probability distribution.
• Aggregating the judgments from multiple experts into a single, representative distribution.

The output of SEE process is a robust input for a decision model.