Resources Repository
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ArticlePublication 2018HTA and MCDA Solely or Combined? The Case of Priority-Setting in Colombia
Given the limited resources available worldwide, healthcare systems face problems of justice and efficiency related …
Given the limited resources available worldwide, healthcare systems face problems of justice and efficiency related to setting priorities. Two methods, Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) have emerged as tools to assist in informed decision-making, but both have advantages and disadvantages. Colombia established a Health Technology Assessment Institute in 2012. The authors discuss challenges faced by the Colombian health system, characteristics of HTA in Colombia and the potential benefits and drawbacks of…
Health/Medicine | Priority Setting/Ethics | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Policy/Regulation | Latin America & Caribbean -
ArticlePublication 2018Resource Allocation in Decision Support Frameworks
Multi-criteria decision-making frameworks expand on typical decision analyses (cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit) by explicitly incorporating value …
Multi-criteria decision-making frameworks expand on typical decision analyses (cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit) by explicitly incorporating value tradeoffs from decision makers and summarizing the performance of investment options. This is done across all chosen dimensions of value, based on the weights provided by the decision makers, but comes at a cost. Currently there is no widely accepted method to suggest how to determine a budget constraint using multi-attribute models or to measure willingness to pay for incremental…
Health/Medicine | Priority Setting/Ethics | Benefit-Cost Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Health Systems | Global -
ArticlePublication 2018Should We Treat Acute Hepatitis C? A Decision and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
This study examines the potential benefits of treating acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection compared …
This study examines the potential benefits of treating acute hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection compared to deferring treatment until the chronic phase, utilizing a microsimulation model. By projecting long-term outcomes such as quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and costs, the analysis evaluates the cost-effectiveness of initiating therapy during the acute phase. Results indicate that treating acute HCV increases QALYs by 0.02 and costs by $483 per patient not at risk of transmitting HCV, yielding an incremental…
Health/Medicine | Microsimulation | Decision Analysis | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Chronic Disease/Risk | North America -
ArticlePublication 2018DALYS and QALYs – Does the Choice of Measure Matter?
This article discusses the measurement of health benefits as a key issue in health economic …
This article discusses the measurement of health benefits as a key issue in health economic evaluations. Authors adapted two previously published models, a Markov model for human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccination, and a pneumococcal vaccination deterministic model (PNEUMO) that reported outputs in QALYs to estimate DALYs in 3 settings, Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom. While the authors found that QALY gains were larger than DALYs avoided in all countries for HPV, differences using QALYs…
Health/Medicine | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Policy/Regulation | Latin America & Caribbean | Europe -
ArticlePublication 2018Trading Bankruptcy for Health: A Discrete-Choice Experiment
This article in Value in Health evaluates the importance of improved health as compared to …
This article in Value in Health evaluates the importance of improved health as compared to improved financial risk protection in the general United States population. Using a discrete-choice experiment, it finds that 31.3% of the population values cure at all costs, and 8.5% of the population use financial solvency to dominate medical decision making. This study shares insight to the US population values and trade-offs between health outcomes and financial health, and highlights the difficult…
Health/Medicine | Preferences/Values | Priority Setting/Ethics | Health Outcomes | Health Systems | Culture/Society | Economics/Finance | North America -
ArticlePublication 2018Estimates of Cancer Incidence Using Registry Data
This article, published in the Journal of Global Oncology, utilizes primary data from the Addis …
This article, published in the Journal of Global Oncology, utilizes primary data from the Addis Ababa population-based cancer registry, as well as supplementary cancer data from six Ethiopian regions to estimate the incidence rates of the most common forms of cancer diagnosed in Ethiopia. The study finds that cancer, most prominently breast cancer, poses a substantial public health threat in Ethiopia. The fight against cancer calls for the expansion of population-based registry sites to improve…
Health/Medicine | Chronic Disease/Risk | Health Systems | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2017Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program in Zambia
This article, published in Trials, outlines a protocol for a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and an …
This article, published in Trials, outlines a protocol for a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and an extended cost-effectiveness analysis (ECEA) of a comprehensive adolescent pregnancy prevention program in Zambia. The study will be conducted alongside a cluster-randomized controlled trial, which tests the hypothesis that economic support with or without community dialogue is an effective strategy for reducing adolescent childbearing rates. The ECEA will estimate the costs of the intervention packages per unit health and non-health gain…
Health/Medicine | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Maternal/Reproductive Health | Child/Nutrition | Social Determinants | Health Systems | Sub-Saharan Africa -
ArticlePublication 2017Simulation of Growth Trajectories of Childhood Obesity into Adulthood
The authors developed a simulation model to estimate the risk of adult obesity at the age …
The authors developed a simulation model to estimate the risk of adult obesity at the age of 35 years for the current population of children in the United States. They used pooled height and weight data from five nationally representative longitudinal studies totaling 176,720 observations from 41,567 children and adults to simulate growth trajectories across the life course adjusted for secular trends. Using 1,000 virtual populations of 1 million children through the age of 19 years, representative of the…
Health/Medicine | Health Outcomes | Microsimulation | Child/Nutrition | Chronic Disease/Risk | North America -
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…
Health/Medicine | Priority Setting/Ethics | Costing Methods | Mathematical Models | Dynamic Transmission | Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Infectious Diseases | Health Systems | Economics/Finance | Sub-Saharan Africa | Middle East & North Africa | Latin America & Caribbean | Asia & Pacific