Economic Evaluations of Health System Strengthening Activities
2022
Health system strengthening (HSS) activities should accompany disease-targeting interventions in low/middle-income countries (LMICs). Economic evaluations provide information on how these types of investment might best be balanced but can be challenging. This paper conducted a systematic review to evaluate how researchers address these economic evaluation challenges.
The authors searches produced 1978 studies, out of which they included 36. Most studies used data from prospective trials and calculated cost-effectiveness directly from these trial inputs, rather than using simulation methods. As a group, these studies primarily emphasized precision and realism over generalizability, meaning that their results were best suited to specific settings.
The number of included studies was small. Findings suggest that most economic evaluations of HSS do not leverage methods like sensitivity analyses or inputs from literature review that would produce more generalizable (but potentially less precise) results. More research into how decision-makers would use economic evaluations to define the expansion path to strengthening health systems would allow for conceptualizing impactful work on the economic value of HSS.
Economic Evaluations of Health System Strengthening Activities
Source:
Hendrix N, Kwete X, Bolongaita S et al. Economic Evaluations of Health System Strengthening Activities in Low-Income and Middle-Income Country Settings: A Methodological Systematic Review. BMJ Global Health 2022; 7 (3). http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-007392