There is a need to‘back-up and look very closely at how we can mesh what we know in pharmacoepidemiology with what we are learning in pharmacoeconomics’ to accomodate the major shift into health economics and pharmacoeconomic analysis that has occurred in recent years. This was the message from Professor Stuart MacLeod from McMaster University, Canada, at the 10th International Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology [Stockholm, Sweden; August 1994].