Question

Applying concept: Consider the following hypothetical scenario...

Suppose faith-based institutions had been offering small group discussions about HIV to attempt to prevent HIV transmission in inner city areas for some time, but no one had ever performed an economic evaluation. Individuals do not have to pay money to attend these sessions. You are part of a team that is preparing to conduct an economic evaluation. Question:

What type of economic evaluation (cost-consequence, cost-effectiveness, cost-utility or cost-benefit) do you think would be most appropriate? Please justify.

Answer 1

The purpose of faith-based institutions is to offer group discussions for HIV prevention. While doing this,

They want to maximize outcomes and minimize costs.

• Limited resources = hard decisions.

• Return-on-investment (ROI) shows how much value we get from our spending decisions.

The purpose is to care about improving the health of the entire population, so they try to maximize health outcomes. But why should they care about economic issues in public health? Both public health managers and economists would agree that maximizing health outcomes is an important goal. However, public health interventions, programs, and policies all have costs, and from an economist’s perspective, keeping these costs low is also an important goal.

Evaluation of an intervention, program, or strategy’s effectiveness looks at how well it reaches its intended goal of improved health outcomes. In contrast, economic evaluation helps us understand the cost factors related to the intervention.

Economic evaluation can be conducted prospectively or retrospectively. For example, economic evaluation can be used before recommending a broad implementation of an effective program or strategy.

In this case :-

Cost-consequence evaluation should be appropriate.

Estimates total costs of a disease or Estimates total costs of a disease or condition: –

Medical and non Medical medical costs.

Productivity losses.

• Generally reported as: – Annual total cost.

– Average patient lifetime cost.

• Shows potential benefits of prevention.

Cost consequence economic evaluation should be the most appropriate.