Bayesian Methods in Health Economics

2

Introduction to Bayesian inference

2.1 Introduction

In the context of statistical problems, the frequentist (or empirical) interpre-

tation of probability has played a predominant role throughout the twentieth

century, especially in the medical field. In this approach, probability is defined

as the limiting frequency of occurrence in an infinitely repeated experiment.

The underlying assumption is that of a “fixed” concept of probability, which

is unknown but can be theoretically disclosed by means of repeated trials,

under the same experimental conditions. Moreover, probability is generally

regarded in classical statistics as a physical property of the ...