Valuing Protection against Financial Risk

This case study examines the use of both cost-effectiveness analysis and benefit-cost analysis to address the likely impacts of competing interventions to improve identification of patients with tuberculosis in South Africa. It considers the impacts of different methodological choices for valuing mortality risk reductions and morbidity risk reductions. The results suggest that all combinations of interventions reduced untreated active disease and are likely to result in substantial gains compared to existing interventions.  

The article examines the economic implications of "community-led total sanitation" (CLTS) in a hypothetical rural area of sub-Saharan Africa, encompassing 200 villages and 100,000 inhabitants. Utilizing data from recent randomized controlled trials and evaluations, the analysis evaluates the effectiveness of CLTS in inducing community-level behavioral changes towards sanitation. It estimates the net benefits of CLTS, accounting for a positive health externality—specifically, the reduction in diarrhea rates due to communal latrine usage, which decreases waterborne pathogens…

This article and the accompanying working paper[1] review the literature and develop recommendations for valuing mortality risk reductions in benefit-cost analyses that address low- and middle-income countries. Increasing life expectancy is a major goal of many policies implemented around the world. As a result, the value of reducing mortality risks has been extensively studied and several organizations have developed recommendations for estimating these values. However, both the recommendations and the underlying research primarily address high-income…