Resources Repository
-
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…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Mathematical Models | State-Transition | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Business/Industry | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | North America -
ArticlePublication 2023Effects of Public Financing of Essential Maternal and Child Health Interventions Across Wealth Quintiles in Nigeria: An Extended Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
This study evaluates the potential health and financial risk protection benefits of public financing for …
This study evaluates the potential health and financial risk protection benefits of public financing for maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) interventions in Nigeria, focusing on different wealth quintiles. Employing extended cost-effectiveness analysis, the research assesses the impact of a policy ensuring zero out-of-pocket costs for 18 essential MNCH services. Three scenarios were modeled: status quo, uniform scale-up, and pro-poor scale-up. Findings suggest that a 5% increase in coverage for all quintiles could prevent significant…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Health Outcomes | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2022Equity Impact of Minimum Unit Pricing of Alcohol
South Africa experiences significant levels of alcohol-related harm. Recent research suggests minimum unit pricing (MUP) …
South Africa experiences significant levels of alcohol-related harm. Recent research suggests minimum unit pricing (MUP) for alcohol would be an effective policy, but high levels of income inequality raise concerns about equity impacts. This paper quantifies the equity impact of MUP on household health and finances in rich and poor drinkers in South Africa. Authors estimate MUP would reduce consumption more among the poorest than the richest drinkers. A MUP policy in South Africa has…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Priority Setting/Ethics | Chronic Disease/Risk | Social Determinants | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa -
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…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Global -
EditorialPublication 2019Quality Transparency in Health Care
The immediate promise of using public reporting to increase quality transparency is that it will …
The immediate promise of using public reporting to increase quality transparency is that it will enable consumers to choose the providers best suited to their needs and thereby lead to improved patient outcomes and welfare. Unfortunately, however, early empirical findings failed to detect such anticipated benefits from public reporting. For example, studies have indicated that the launch of the Hospital Compare website and other efforts aimed at increasing quality transparency have not resulted in improved…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | North America -
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…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Decision Theory | Costing Methods | Health Outcomes | State-Transition | Decision Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | 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…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Priority Setting/Ethics | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Economics/Finance | 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,…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Latin America & Caribbean -
ArticlePublication 2022Potential Distributional Health & Financial Benefits of Increased Tobacco Taxes in Ethiopia: Findings from a Modeling Study
This study evaluates the potential impacts of Ethiopia's tobacco tax increase in 2020, which raised …
This study evaluates the potential impacts of Ethiopia's tobacco tax increase in 2020, which raised cigarette prices by approximately 67%. Employing parameters such as price elasticity of demand and smoking prevalence, the analysis utilizes existing literature and secondary data to model the effects of the reform on various outcomes, focusing on life years, tax revenues, cigarette expenditures, and catastrophic health expenditures (CHE). Concentrating solely on male smokers due to low female smoking rates, the results…
Health/Medicine | Policy/Regulation | Health Outcomes | Mathematical Models | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Sub-Saharan Africa