Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2016Departures from Cost-Effectiveness Recommendations: Health System Constraints
Cost-effectiveness analysis assumes a single constraint, in the form of the budget constraint, whereas in reality …
Cost-effectiveness analysis assumes a single constraint, in the form of the budget constraint, whereas in reality decision makers may be faced with numerous other constraints. The objective of this article is to develop a typology of constraints that may act as barriers to implementation of cost-effectiveness recommendations. Six categories of constraints are considered: the design of the health system; costs of implementing change; system interactions between interventions; uncertainty in estimates of costs and benefits; weak governance;…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Policy/Regulation | Economics/Finance | Education/Labor | Government/Law | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2016Accounting for Technical, Ethical, and Political Factors in Priority Setting
This article investigates two cases of priority setting to explore how, in addition to technical …
This article investigates two cases of priority setting to explore how, in addition to technical considerations, ethical and political factors shape the allocation of health resources. First, they discuss how Thai authorities adjudicated a coverage decision for HLA-B*1502 screening, which meets the national cost-effectiveness threshold for only some of the conditions it can detect. Second, they consider England’s Cancer Drugs Fund to investigate the interplay of technical decision making and political reality. The findings suggest four concluding…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk | Policy/Regulation | Climate/Environment | Government/Law | Science/Technology | Global | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2016Challenges of Prioritization
Cost-effectiveness analysis has traditionally been applied primarily to very specific interventions, such as drugs and …
Cost-effectiveness analysis has traditionally been applied primarily to very specific interventions, such as drugs and diagnostics; in addition, the evidence base drawn on for evaluating such interventions is relatively good, given the medical research industry surrounding their testing. However, with increasing success in controlling infectious diseases, many of the health challenges facing countries concern broad threats to health with multiple causes, such as obesity, where the relationship between policy action and health benefit is not…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Chronic Disease/Risk | Mental Health | Economics/Finance | Global -
ArticlePublication 2016An Economic Evaluation of the PEN Program in Indonesia
Responding to the economic and health burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), the World Health Organization (WHO) …
Responding to the economic and health burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), the World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the Package of Essential Noncommunicable disease (PEN) interventions. Several countries, including Indonesia, implemented the PEN program. To assess the value of the investment in the current program, an economic evaluation of the program was conducted with collaboration between the Ministry of Health in Indonesia, the WHO, and the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI). This study evaluated the delivery of…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Technology Assessment | Chronic Disease/Risk | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2016Defining a Health Benefits Package: What Are the Necessary Processes?
There is immense interest worldwide in the notion of universal health coverage. A major policy …
There is immense interest worldwide in the notion of universal health coverage. A major policy focus in moving toward universal health coverage has been on the key policy question: what services should be made available and under what conditions? This article focuses on how a feasible set of universal health coverage services can be explicitly defined to create what is commonly known as a “health benefits package”, a set of services that can be feasibly financed…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Culture/Society | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Global -
ArticlePublication 2015Expansion of Surgical Access in Rural Ethiopia: Extended Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
This article, published in Health Policy and Planning, utilizes an extended cost effectiveness analysis (ECEA) …
This article, published in Health Policy and Planning, utilizes an extended cost effectiveness analysis (ECEA) to examine how policies to expand access to surgery in rural Ethiopia would impact health, impoverishment, and equity. The study finds that health benefits, financial risk protection, and equity appear to be in tension in the expansion of access to surgical care. Health benefits from each of the examined policies accrue primarily among the poor, but without travel vouchers, many…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ReviewPublication 2015Provider Costs for Cardiovascular Disease in Low-And Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review
The burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and related conditions is increasing in low- and middle-income countries. Policy …
The burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and related conditions is increasing in low- and middle-income countries. Policy makers need an understanding of the magnitude and drivers of the costs of cardiovascular disease related conditions to make decisions on how to allocate limited health resources. This systematic review of the published literature documents provider-incurred costs of treatment for cardiovascular diseases and risk conditions in low- and middle-income countries. Total costs of treatment were inflated to 2012 US dollars for comparability…
Costing Methods | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific -
ArticlePublication 2015Three Interventions That Reduce Childhood Obesity
Policy makers seeking to reduce childhood obesity must prioritize investment in treatment and primary prevention. …
Policy makers seeking to reduce childhood obesity must prioritize investment in treatment and primary prevention. The authors estimated the cost-effectiveness of seven interventions high on the obesity policy agenda: (1) a sugar-sweetened beverage excise tax, (2) elimination of the tax subsidy for advertising unhealthy food to children, (3) restaurant menu calorie labeling, (4) nutrition standards for school meals, (5) nutrition standards for all other food and beverages sold in schools, (6) improved early care and…
Costing Methods | Health/Medicine | Health Systems | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Child/Nutrition | Policy/Regulation | Clinical Care | Economics/Finance | North America -
Lesson/ModuleMultimedia, Teaching Resource 2015Would You Opt for a Life with No Pain?
Imagine if you could plug your brain into a machine that would bring you ultimate …
Imagine if you could plug your brain into a machine that would bring you ultimate pleasure for the rest of your life. The only catch? You have to permanently leave reality behind. Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald explore Robert Nozick’s thought experiment that he called the Experience Machine. This TED-Ed lesson was developed by Hayley Levitt and Bethany Rickwald with animation by Avi Ofer. Available on YouTube. Full lesson available on TED-Ed. This includes the video,…
Decision Psychology | Health/Medicine | Social Determinants | Preferences/Values | Economics/Finance | Global | High School | College | Graduate | Doctoral | Professional | Critical Thinking/Analysis