Final answer:
Cost Effectiveness Analysis unit refers to the measurement of both costs and benefits in a decision-making process, where a T-shaped chart is typically used to weigh and compare marginal costs and benefits.
Step-by-step explanation:
A Cost Effectiveness Analysis unit is a component used to measure the costs and benefits associated with a decision or project. In such an analysis, costs are quantified in terms of money, effort, and other sacrifices made to achieve a certain goal, whereas benefits are the gains received from the decision in terms of money, time, experience, and other improvements. Making a decision based on these analyses involves weighing marginal costs, the cost of adding one more unit, against marginal benefits, the benefit of adding the same unit, and contrasting them on a T-shaped chart.
Conservationists, for example, might use such an analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of their projects by employing mathematical models and comparing similar groups that received a conservation intervention with those that didn't. Businesses also use mathematical models to estimate costs for various approaches and to predict costs of alternative solutions during the idea generation phase of a design process. These costs are then normalized, meaning adjusted, so they can be compared on the same level, such as cost per thousand gallons of water treated or conserved.