Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2021Health Benefit Package Design
Policymakers face difficult choices over which health interventions to publicly finance. This article presents an …
Policymakers face difficult choices over which health interventions to publicly finance. This article presents an approach to health benefits package design that accommodates explicit tradeoffs between improvements in health and provision of financial risk protection. The authors designed a mathematical optimization model to balance gains in health and financial risk protection across candidate interventions when publicly financed. The optimal subset of interventions selected for inclusion was determined with bi-criterion integer programming conditional on a budget…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Global -
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.
Priority Setting/Ethics | Decision Theory | Global | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology -
ArticlePublication 2018Consequences of a Cigarette Price Increase in 13 Middle Income Countries
This study used extended cost-effectiveness analysis to examine the impact of a 50% increase in …
This study used extended cost-effectiveness analysis to examine the impact of a 50% increase in market prices of cigarettes on health, poverty, and financial protection for men in 13 middle income countries. A 50% increase in cigarette prices would lead to about 450 million years of life gained across the 13 countries from smoking cessation, with half of these in China. Across all countries, men in the bottom income group would gain 6.7 times more…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Global | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Chronic Disease/Risk | Social Determinants | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2018Poverty Reduction & Equity Benefits of Measles, Rotavirus and Pneumococcal Vaccines in LMICs
This study uses the extended cost effectiveness analysis (ECEA) to evaluate the impact of immunization …
This study uses the extended cost effectiveness analysis (ECEA) to evaluate the impact of immunization against measles, severe pneumococcal disease and severe rotavirus for birth cohorts vaccinated over 2016–2030 for three scenarios in 41 Gavi-eligible countries: no immunization, current immunization coverage forecasts and the current immunization coverage enhanced with funding support. Following the distribution of the cases by socioeconomic group, the study found that the number of catastrophic health costs (CHC) cases attributable to measles,…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Global | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Child/Nutrition | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2017Using Cost-Effectiveness Analysis to Address Health Equity Concerns
This article serves as a guide to using cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) to address health equity …
This article serves as a guide to using cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) to address health equity concerns. The authors introduce the "equity impact plane," a tool for considering trade-offs between improving total health-the objective underpinning conventional CEA-and equity objectives, such as reducing social inequality in health or prioritizing the severely ill. Improving total health may clash with reducing social inequality in health, for example, when effective delivery of services to disadvantaged communities requires additional costs. Who…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Preferences/Values | Global | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2017Policy Makers, the International Community and the Population: Case Study on HIV/AIDS
A four-period game is developed between a policy maker, the international community, and the population. …
A four-period game is developed between a policy maker, the international community, and the population. This research supplements, through implementing strategic interaction, earlier research analyzing "one player at a time." The first two players distribute funds between preventing and treating diseases. The population reacts by degree of risky behavior which may cause no disease, disease contraction, recovery, sickness/death. More funds to prevention implies less disease contraction but higher death rate given disease contraction. The cost…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Mathematical Models | Global | Decision Psychology | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Global Governance | Economics/Finance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine -
ReviewPublication 2016Decision Support for Infectious Disease Control
This report from RAND reviews decision-support tools, including models and nonmodeling approaches, that are relevant to …
This report from RAND reviews decision-support tools, including models and nonmodeling approaches, that are relevant to infectious disease prevention, detection, and response and aligns these tools with real-world policy questions that the tools can help address. This overview is designed to help modelers and other technical experts understand the questions that policymakers will raise and the decisions they must make. The report also presents policymakers with the capabilities and limitations of the different tools that may…
Mathematical Models | Dynamic Transmission | Global | State-Transition | Microsimulation | Dynamic Simulation | Infectious Diseases | Global Governance | Government/Law | Health/Medicine | Military/Defense -
ReviewPublication 2014Valuing Vaccination
Vaccination has led to remarkable health gains over the last century. However, large coverage gaps …
Vaccination has led to remarkable health gains over the last century. However, large coverage gaps remain, which will require significant financial resources and political will to address. In recent years, a compelling line of inquiry has established the economic benefits of health, at both the individual and aggregate levels. Most existing economic evaluations of particular health interventions fail to account for this new research, leading to potentially sizable undervaluation of those interventions. In line with…
Priority Setting/Ethics | Preferences/Values | Global | Costing Methods | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Health/Medicine -
ArticlePublication 2011Dynamic Policies for Controlling Spread of Emerging Infections
This paper illustrates the design and implementation of a dynamic health policy for the control …
This paper illustrates the design and implementation of a dynamic health policy for the control of a novel strain of influenza, where two types of interventions are assumed to be available during the epidemic: (1) vaccines and antiviral drugs, and (2) transmission reducing measures, such as social distancing or mask use, that may be turned "on" or "off" repeatedly during the course of epidemic. A modeling approach is described for developing dynamic health policies that allow…
Mathematical Models | Dynamic Transmission | Global | Dynamic Simulation | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Health/Medicine | Science/Technology