EDITORIAL Assessing the quality of Swedish health economics research

The sub-discipline of health economics has grown rapidly over the last ten years. Swedish researchers were among the first in the field and have featured prominently in its development. Therefore the review of Swedish Health Economics Research, commissioned by FAS (the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research) published as a supplement to this journal [1], provided an excellent opportunity to take stock of past achievements and to make recommendations for the future. The first task of the evaluation group was to define what is meant by ‘health economics’. This is not a straightforward task, as health economics is closely associated with social medicine and public health, with many studies being undertaken by multidisci