Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2018Equity Impact Vaccines May Have on Averting Deaths and Medical Impoverishment
In this analysis, authors estimated the number of deaths averted and the number of cases …
In this analysis, authors estimated the number of deaths averted and the number of cases of medical impoverishment averted of ten antigens and their corresponding vaccines across income quintiles for forty-one low- and middle-income countries. The study found that vaccines administered between 2016 and 2030 would prevent 36 million deaths. Vaccines will have the greatest impact on reducing cases of poverty caused by hepatitis B, helping an estimated 14 million people avoid medical impoverishment. An…
Mathematical Models | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Priority Setting/Ethics | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Child/Nutrition | Global Governance | Economics/Finance | Science/Technology | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Asia & Pacific -
ArticleWeb Portal 2017PLoS Collection: Prevention, Diagnosis and Treatment of Sexually Transmitted Infections
Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than one million new sexually transmitted …
Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than one million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur each day, incurring a very substantial burden of morbidity, mortality and additional infections. The pathogens responsible include bacteria, parasites and viruses, and intensive research is needed to address the substantial barriers to diagnosis and treatment of STIs, and the behavioral challenges of prevention. This PLOS collection, published in collaboration with WHO, focuses on global policy and systems…
Mathematical Models | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Priority Setting/Ethics | Costing Methods | Dynamic Transmission | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2017Changing the South African National ART Guidelines: The Role of Cost Modelling
This analysis was motivated by the South African Department of Health's request to assess the …
This analysis was motivated by the South African Department of Health's request to assess the cost implications of adopting sets of ART guidelines issued by the World Health Organization between 2010 and 2016.Using data from large South African ART clinics (n = 24,244 patients), projections of patients in need of ART, and cost data from bottom-up cost analyses, the authors constructed a population-level health-state transition model with 6-monthly transitions between health states depending on patients’ age,…
State-Transition | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Costing Methods | Health Systems | Clinical Care | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2017Revealed Willingness-to-Pay vs. Standard Cost-Effectiveness Thresholds
This study estimates the cost-effectiveness thresholds (CETs) of 16 HIV programs in South Africa. The …
This study estimates the cost-effectiveness thresholds (CETs) of 16 HIV programs in South Africa. The use of CETs based on a country’s income per capita has been criticized for not being grounded in theory or evidence, especially in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). An alternative has been produced for South Africa, based on estimates of life years saved and the country’s committed HIV budget. The authors used a previously -published optimization method to estimate CETs,…
Preferences/Values | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2017Getting it Right When Budgets are Tight: Prioritizing Responses to HIV Epidemics
Prioritizing investments across health interventions is complicated by the nonlinear relationship between intervention coverage and …
Prioritizing investments across health interventions is complicated by the nonlinear relationship between intervention coverage and epidemiological outcomes. It can be difficult for countries to know which interventions to prioritize for greatest epidemiological impact, particularly when budgets are uncertain.The authors examined four case studies of HIV epidemics in diverse settings, each with different characteristics. These case studies were based on public data available for Belarus, Peru, Togo, and Myanmar. The Optima HIV model and software package…
Mathematical Models | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Priority Setting/Ethics | Costing Methods | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2017Predicting Carer Health Effects for Use in Economic Evaluation
Illnesses and interventions can affect the health status of family carers in addition to patients. …
Illnesses and interventions can affect the health status of family carers in addition to patients. However economic evaluation studies rarely incorporate data on health status of carers. In order to investigate whether changes in carer health status could be ‘predicted’ from the health data of those they provide care to, as a means of incorporating carer outcomes in economic evaluation, the authors used regression models to analyse changes in carers’ health status. They derive predictive algorithms based on…
Preferences/Values | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Health Outcomes | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | North America | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2017Designing an Optimal HIV Programme for South Africa
This 2017 study compares the traditional and a novel method of comparing cost-effectiveness interventions in …
This 2017 study compares the traditional and a novel method of comparing cost-effectiveness interventions in the context of HIV in South Africa, using a modeling approach. The authors argue that the assumptions of a) independence of interventions, and b) linear scale-up effects do not hold because South Africa has a large domestically funded HIV program with highly saturated coverage levels. The authors therefore aim to better allocate resources for HIV interventions in South Africa when…
Mathematical Models | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Operations Research | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2017Likelihood Approach for Calibration of Stochastic Epidemic Models
Stochastic transmission dynamic models are especially useful for studying the early emergence of novel pathogens …
Stochastic transmission dynamic models are especially useful for studying the early emergence of novel pathogens given the importance of chance events when the number of infectious individuals is small. However, methods for parameter estimation and prediction for these types of stochastic models remain limited. This paper describes a calibration and prediction framework for stochastic compartmental transmission models of epidemics. The proposed method applies a linear noise approximation to describe the size of the fluctuations, and…
Calibration/Validation | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Dynamic Transmission | Dynamic Simulation | Health Systems | Global -
ArticlePublication 2016Funding Gap for Immunization Across 94 Low- and Middle-Income Countries
This analysis estimates immunization program costs, potentially available financing, and resulting funding gap for 94 …
This analysis estimates immunization program costs, potentially available financing, and resulting funding gap for 94 low- and middle-income countries over the five-year period of 2016–2020. Vaccine financing by country governments, GAVI, and other development sources was forecasted for vaccine, supply chain, and service delivery based on an analysis of comprehensive multi-year plans together with a series of scenarios. The authors found that that delivery of full vaccination programs across the 94 countries would result in a total…
Mathematical Models | Health/Medicine | Infectious Diseases | Costing Methods | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Global Governance | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific