Cost-Effectiveness of Total Hip and Knee Replacements for the Australian Population with Osteoarthritis: Discrete-Event Simulation Model

Background: Osteoarthritis constitutes a major musculoskeletal burden for the aged Australians. Hip and knee replacement surgeries are effective interventions once all conservative therapies to manage the symptoms have been exhausted. This study aims to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of hip and knee replacements in Australia. To our best knowledge, the study is the first attempt to account for the dual nature of hip and knee osteoarthritis in modelling the severities of right and left joints separately

Family practices' achievement of diabetes quality of care targets and risk of screen-detected diabetic retinopathy

Background: We aimed to determine whether family practices' achievement of diabetes quality of care targets is associated with diabetic retinal disease in registered patients. Methods: Data for achievement of diabetes quality of care targets, including the proportion of patients with HbA1c≤7.5%, for 144 family practices in London UK, for the years 2004/5 to 2007/8, were linked to data from a population-based diabetes eye screening programme collected from September 2007 to February 2009. Analyses were adjusted for age, sex, duration and type of diabetes, unadjusted diabetes prevalence, ethnicity and deprivation category. Results: Data were analysed for 24,458 participants with one or more eye screening results in the period. There were 9,332 (38%) with any diabetic retinopathy and 2,819 (11.5%) with sight threatening diabetic retinopathy (STDR), including 2,654 (10.9%) with maculopathy. Among participants registered at 13 family practices that were in the highest quartile for achievement of the HbA1c quality of care target for all four years of study, the relative odds of any diabetic retinopathy were 0.78 (0.69 to 0.88) P<0.001. For participants at 12 practices consistently in the lowest quartile of HbA1c achievement, the relative odds of any diabetic retinopathy were 1.16 (1.03 to 1.30), P = 0.015. In the highest achieving practices, the relative odds of maculopathy were 0.74 (0.62 to 0.89), P = 0.001 and STDR 0.77 (0.65 to 0.92), P = 0.004. Conclusions: The risk of diabetic retinopathy might be lower at family practices that consistently achieve highly on diabetes quality of care targets for HbA1c

Economic Evaluations of Adult Male Circumcision for Prevention of Heterosexual Acquisition of HIV in Men in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Co-occurrence of diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer: quantifying age patterns in the Dutch population using health survey data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The high prevalence of chronic diseases in Western countries implies that the presence of multiple chronic diseases within one person is common. Especially at older ages, when the likelihood of having a chronic disease increases, the co-occurrence of distinct diseases will be encountered more frequently. The aim of this study was to estimate the age-specific prevalence of multimorbidity in the general population. In particular, we investigate to what extent specific pairs of diseases cluster within people and how this deviates from what is to be expected under the assumption of the independent occurrence of diseases (i.e., sheer coincidence).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used data from a Dutch health survey to estimate the prevalence of pairs of chronic diseases specified by age. Diseases we focused on were diabetes, myocardial infarction, stroke, and cancer. Multinomial P-splines were fitted to the data to model the relation between age and disease status (single versus two diseases). To assess to what extent co-occurrence cannot be explained by independent occurrence, we estimated observed/expected co-occurrence ratios using predictions of the fitted regression models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Prevalence increased with age for all disease pairs. For all disease pairs, prevalence at most ages was much higher than is to be expected on the basis of coincidence. Observed/expected ratios of disease combinations decreased with age.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Common chronic diseases co-occur in one individual more frequently than is due to chance. In monitoring the occurrence of diseases among the population at large, such multimorbidity is insufficiently taken into account.</p

Waist Circumference and Body Mass Index as Predictors of Health Care Costs

BACKGROUND: In the present study we analyze the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) and future health care costs. On the basis of the relation between these anthropometric measures and mortality, we hypothesized that for all levels of BMI increased WC implies added future health care costs (Hypothesis 1) and for given levels of WC increased BMI entails reduced future health care costs (Hypothesis 2). We furthermore assessed whether a combination of the two measures predicts health care costs better than either individual measure. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Data were obtained from the Danish prospective cohort study Diet, Cancer and Health. The population includes 15,334 men and 16,506 women 50 to 64 years old recruited in 1996 to 1997. The relationship between future health care costs and BMI and WC in combination was analyzed by use of categorized and continuous analyses. The analysis confirms Hypothesis 1, reflecting that an increased level of abdominal fat for a given BMI gives higher health care costs. Hypothesis 2, that BMI had a protective effect for a given WC, was only confirmed in the continuous analysis and for a subgroup of women (BMI<30 kg/m(2) and WC <88 cm). The relative magnitude of the estimates supports that the regressions including WC as an explanatory factor provide the best fit to the data. CONCLUSION: The study showed that WC for given levels of BMI predicts increased health costs, whereas BMI for given WC did not predict health costs except for a lower cost in non-obese women with normal WC. Combining WC and BMI does not give a better prediction of costs than WC alone

Cost-Effectiveness of an Opportunistic Screening Programme and Brief Intervention for Excessive Alcohol Use in Primary Care

Effective prevention of excessive alcohol use has the potential to reduce the public burden of disease considerably. We investigated the cost-effectiveness of Screening and Brief Intervention (SBI) for excessive alcohol use in primary care in the Netherlands, which is targeted at early detection and treatment of ‘at-risk’ drinkers.We compared a SBI scenario (opportunistic screening and brief intervention for ‘at-risk’ drinkers) in general practices with the current practice scenario (no SBI) in the Netherlands. We used the RIVM Chronic Disease Model (CDM) to extrapolate from decreased alcohol consumption to effects on health care costs and Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) gained. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was employed to study the effect of uncertainty in the model parameters. In total, 56,000 QALYs were gained at an additional cost of €298,000,000 due to providing alcohol SBI in the target population, resulting in a cost-effectiveness ratio of €5,400 per QALY gained.Prevention of excessive alcohol use by implementing SBI for excessive alcohol use in primary care settings appears to be cost-effective

Increasing Short-Stay Unplanned Hospital Admissions among Children in England; Time Trends Analysis '97-'06

BACKGROUND: Timely care by general practitioners in the community keeps children out of hospital and provides better continuity of care. Yet in the UK, access to primary care has diminished since 2004 when changes in general practitioners' contracts enabled them to 'opt out' of providing out-of-hours care and since then unplanned pediatric hospital admission rates have escalated, particularly through emergency departments. We hypothesised that any increase in isolated short stay admissions for childhood illness might reflect failure to manage these cases in the community over a 10 year period spanning these changes. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a population based time trends study of major causes of hospital admission in children 2 days. By 2006, 67.3% of all unplanned admissions were isolated short stays <2 days. The increases in admission rates were greater for common non-infectious than infectious causes of admissions. CONCLUSIONS: Short stay unplanned hospital admission rates in young children in England have increased substantially in recent years and are not accounted for by reductions in length of in-hospital stay. The majority are isolated short stay admissions for minor illness episodes that could be better managed by primary care in the community and may be evidence of a failure of primary care services

DYNAMO-HIA–A Dynamic Modeling Tool for Generic Health Impact Assessments

Currently, no standard tool is publicly available that allows researchers or policy-makers to quantify the impact of policies using epidemiological evidence within the causal framework of Health Impact Assessment (HIA). A standard tool should comply with three technical criteria (real-life population, dynamic projection, explicit risk-factor states) and three usability criteria (modest data requirements, rich model output, generally accessible) to be useful in the applied setting of HIA. With DYNAMO-HIA (Dynamic Modeling for Health Impact Assessment), we introduce such a generic software tool specifically designed to facilitate quantification in the assessment of the health impacts of policies

The Impact of Changing Medicaid Enrollments on New Mexico's Immunization Program

Background: Immunizations are an important component to pediatric primary care. New Mexico is a relatively poor and rural state which has sometimes struggled to achieve and maintain its childhood immunization rates. We evaluated New Mexico’s immunization rates between 1996 and 2006. Specifically, we examined the increase in immunization rates between 2002 and 2004, and how this increase may have been associated with Medicaid enrollment levels, as opposed to changes in government policies concerning immunization practices. Methods and Findings: This study examines trends in childhood immunization coverage rates relative to Medicaid enrollment among those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in New Mexico. Information on health policy changes and immunization coverage was obtained from state governmental sources and the National Immunization Survey. We found statistically significant correlations varying from 0.86 to 0.93 between immunization rates and Medicaid enrollment. Conclusions: New Mexico’s improvement and subsequent deterioration in immunization rates corresponded with changing Medicaid coverage, rather than the state’s efforts to change immunization practices. Maintaining high Medicaid enrollmen

Self-Reported Serious Illnesses in Rural Cambodia: A Cross-Sectional Survey

BACKGROUND: There is substantial evidence that ill-health is a major cause of impoverishment in developing countries. Major illnesses can have a serious economic impact on poor households through treatment costs and income loss. However, available methods for measuring the impact of ill-health on household welfare display several shortcomings and new methods are thus needed. To understand the potential complex impact of major illnesses on household livelihoods, a study on poverty and illness was conducted in rural Cambodia, as part of an international comparative research project. A cross-sectional survey was performed to identify households affected by major illness for further in-depth interviews. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: 5,975 households in three rural health districts were randomly selected through a two-stage cluster sampling and interviewed. 27% of the households reported at least one member with a serious illness in the year preceding the survey and 15% of the household members reported suffering from at least one serious illness. The most reported conditions include common tropical infectious diseases, chronic diseases (notably hypertension and heart diseases) and road traffic accidents. Such conditions were particularly concentrated among the poor, children under five, women, and the elderly. Poor women often reported complications related to pregnancy and delivery as serious illnesses. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: Despite some methodological limitations, this study provides new information on the frequency of self-reported serious illnesses among the rural Cambodia's population, which serves as a basis for further in-depth investigation on 'major illnesses' and their economic consequences on poor households. This can in turn help policy makers to formulate appropriate interventions to protect the poor from the financial burden associated with ill-health. Our findings suggest that every year a considerable proportion of rural population in Cambodia, especially the poor and vulnerable, are affected by serious illnesses, both communicable and non-communicable diseases