About the Authors

Gianluca Baio

Affiliations Department of Statistical Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom, Biostatistics Unit, Department of Statistics, University of Milano–Bicocca, Milan, Italy

Alessandro Capone

Affiliation Institute of Leadership and Management in Health (ILMH), Kingston University London, London, United Kingdom

Andrea Marcellusi

Affiliation CEIS Sanità (CHEM – Centre for Health Economics and Management), Faculty of Economics, University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Francesco Saverio Mennini

Affiliations Institute of Leadership and Management in Health (ILMH), Kingston University London, London, United Kingdom, CEIS Sanità (CHEM – Centre for Health Economics and Management), Faculty of Economics, University of Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy

Giampiero Favato

g.favato@kingston.ac.uk

Affiliation Institute of Leadership and Management in Health (ILMH), Kingston University London, London, United Kingdom

Competing Interests

Dr. Alessandro Capone is a consultant of Sanofi Pasteur MSD Italy which markets Gardasil, an anti-HPV vaccine. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AC. Analyzed the data: GB AM. Wrote the paper: GF FSM.