Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2023Benefits and Costs of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
Written mid-pandemic, this article evaluates the direct costs and health benefits of requiring COVID-19 vaccinations …
Written mid-pandemic, this article evaluates the direct costs and health benefits of requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for U.S. federal employees and healthcare and private sector workers. These mandates were controversial and some were halted by litigation. If they had been implemented as intended, the net benefits would depend on the course of the pandemic. If a more transmissible variant (such as Omicron) emerges, the net benefits may be large. If the pandemic instead fades, the benefits…
Mathematical Models | Policy/Regulation | State-Transition | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | North America -
ArticlePublication 2022Economic Evaluations of Health System Strengthening Activities
Health system strengthening (HSS) activities should accompany disease-targeting interventions in low/middle-income countries (LMICs). Economic evaluations …
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…
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Global -
ArticlePublication 2021Distributional Accounting Impact Model of Tobacco Taxation
As with other ‘sin taxes’, tobacco taxes are generally regarded as a highly cost-effective mechanism …
As with other ‘sin taxes’, tobacco taxes are generally regarded as a highly cost-effective mechanism to reduce consumption while also considered to be regressive. This dichotomy undermines efforts to fully implement tobacco taxes at levels recommended by the WHO due to concerns of fairness. This article demonstrates when there are circumstances in which the impacts of additional tobacco taxes are not regressive, using a standard income-share accounting definition of tax burden. The authors apply mathematical…
Mathematical Models | Policy/Regulation -
ArticlePublication 2022Vaccinations versus Lockdowns to Prevent COVID-19 Mortality
This analysis estimated the costs associated with preventing Covid-19 deaths by vaccinations versus lockdowns. Publicly …
This analysis estimated the costs associated with preventing Covid-19 deaths by vaccinations versus lockdowns. Publicly available datasets from the Israeli Ministry of Health were used to model the parameters of the pandemic in Israel. The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker was used for quantitative data on government policies. Data on the Israeli economy were taken from the Central Bureau of Statistics. The models demonstrate that the first lockdown prevented 1022 COVID-19 deaths at the cost…
Decision Theory | Policy/Regulation | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | State-Transition | Decision Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Middle East & North Africa -
ArticlePublication 2022COVID-19 Response: The Need for Economic Evaluation
COVID-19-related policies are fraught with trade-offs. Many of these trade-offs involve dimensions that can be …
COVID-19-related policies are fraught with trade-offs. Many of these trade-offs involve dimensions that can be quantitatively weighed using economic evaluation, such as those between health and cost outcomes. Other types of dimensions, such as those involving equity or autonomy, can be harder to quantify but should be considered in a comprehensive health policy decision-making context nonetheless. The authors of this New England Journal of Medicine Perspectives article outline how methods of economic evaluation and decision…
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Priority Setting/Ethics | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine | Global | North America -
ArticlePublication 2022Distributional Effects of Tobacco Tax Increases across Mexico: An ECEA
This study examines the distributional impacts of a one-peso tobacco tax increase in Mexico, focusing …
This study examines the distributional impacts of a one-peso tobacco tax increase in Mexico, focusing on health, poverty, and financial outcomes at the subnational level. Utilizing an extended cost-effectiveness analysis, the research estimates various metrics such as life-years gained, smoking attributable deaths averted, treatment costs averted, and financial impacts by income group across five regions. Findings reveal that the tax increase would lead to significant benefits, including approximately 1.5 million smokers quitting across the regions,…
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Latin America & Caribbean -
ArticlePublication 2022Trauma Care in Public and Private Hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Cross-Sectional Observational Study
This study examines the financial risks associated with seeking trauma care for road traffic injuries …
This study examines the financial risks associated with seeking trauma care for road traffic injuries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Conducting a cross-sectional survey from December 2018 to February 2019 in three public and one private hospital, the research analyzes out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures related to trauma care. Data from 452 trauma cases are collected, encompassing both medical and non-medical costs. Catastrophic health expenditures, defined as OOP health expenditures exceeding 10% of total household expenditures, are assessed,…
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Injuries/Accidents | Health/Medicine | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2021Rational Policymaking during a Pandemic
Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and …
Policymaking during a pandemic can be extremely challenging. As COVID-19 is a new disease and its global impacts are unprecedented, decisions are taken in a highly uncertain, complex, and rapidly changing environment. In such a context, in which human lives and the economy are at stake, the authors argue that using ideas and constructs from modern decision theory, even informally, will make policymaking a more responsible and transparent process.
Decision Theory | Policy/Regulation | Priority Setting/Ethics | Infectious Diseases | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology | Global -
ReportPublication 2021Valuing COVID-19 Mortality and Morbidity Risks
In this report, the researchers develop an approach for valuing COVID-19 mortality and morbidity risk …
In this report, the researchers develop an approach for valuing COVID-19 mortality and morbidity risk reductions that builds on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Guidelines for Regulatory Impact Analysis. They review the differences between COVID-19 mortality risks and the types of risks that are more commonly studied, and find that the impacts of these differences on the value of mortality risk reductions (the value per statistical life, VSL) are uncertain. They…
Preferences/Values | Policy/Regulation | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Government/Law | North America