slides
Cost-effectiveness analysis for sector-wide priority setting in health
- Publication date
- 20 November 2003
- Publisher
- Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) provides one means by which decision-makers may
assess and potentially improve the performance of health systems. The process can
help to ensure that resources devoted to health systems are achieving the maximum
possible benefit in terms of outcomes that people value. Over the past three decades
there has been an exponential growth in the number of economic appraisals performed
in health. Following standard textbooks on economic evaluations, most of these CEA
studies pursue an incremental approach which requires comparison of the additional
costs of an intervention over current practice with additional health benefits. Such
an incremental approach, however, is unable to provide policy makers with all necessary
information relating to decisions like: "Do the resources currently devoted to health
achieve as much as they could?", or "How best to use additional resources if they
become available?".
This thesis proposes a broader sectoral approach via the application of a generalized
CEA framework which also al!ows examination of existing inefficiencies in the health
system- that is, the wide variations in CE ratios observed among interventions that are
currently in use suggest there is considerable room to improve efficiency by moving from
inefficient interventions currently in use to efficient interventions that are under-utilised. In developing countries in particular reallocation of scarce financial resources is most
important.