EU-HTA Why Words Matter?

Words matter because they have profound power to shape thoughts, emotions, actions, and social realities. They influence our thoughts and actions daily by shaping our perceptions, and behaviors at both conscious and subconscious levels. Beyond words, semantics are concerned with how language conveys meaning and how people understand and use that meaning in each particular context. The words and semantics used in the European Health Technology Assessment (EU-HTA) Regulation [1], guidance documents, guidelines, and implementation acts play a crucial role in shaping our understanding, interpretation, and conceptualization of EU-HTA reality. Our perception of the EU-HTA Regulation and its implementation will be significantly influenced by the terminology employed by the European Commission (EC) and the Member States Health Technology Assessment Coordination Group (MS-HTA-CG). Several terms and expressions used in official documents such as EU-HTA Regulation and Guidance documents or guidelines, appear semantically imprecise or misleading, as they may create systematic bias and inaccurate vision of the EU-HTA. They may distort general understanding of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as well. This paper analyzes words and semantics used by the EC and MS-HTA-CG in publicly available materials that appear misused. This editorial does not report such misuses in a systematic way, but underlines several of the most prominent ones to raise awareness on this important phenomenon.