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Biomedical subjects

David B Evans

Publications and source records attributed to David B Evans.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Enhancing the comparability of costing methods: cross-country variability in the prices of non-traded inputs to health programmes.

BACKGROUND: National and international policy makers have been increasing their focus on developing strategies to enable poor countries achieve the millennium development goals. This requires information on the costs of different types of health interventions and the resources needed to scale them up, either singly or in combinations. Cost data also guides decisions about the most appropriate mix of interventions in different settings, in view of the increasing, but still limited, resources available to improve health. Many cost and cost-effectiveness studies include only the costs incurred at the point of delivery to beneficiaries, omitting those incurred at other levels of the system such as administration, media, training and overall management. The few studies that have measured them directly suggest that they can sometimes account for a substantial proportion of total costs, so that their omission can result in biased estimates of the resources needed to run a programme or the relative cost-effectiveness of different choices. However, prices of different inputs used in the production of health interventions can vary substantially within a country. Basing cost estimates on a single price observation runs the risk that the results are based on an outlier observation rather than the typical costs of the input. METHODS: We first explore the determinants of the observed variation in the prices of selected "non-traded" intermediate inputs to health programmes--printed matter and media advertising, and water and electricity--accounting for variation within and across countries. We then use the estimated relationship to impute average prices for countries where limited data are available with uncertainty intervals. RESULTS: Prices vary across countries with GDP per capita and a number of determinants of supply and demand. Media and printing were inelastic with respect to GDP per capita, with a positive correlation, while the utilities had a surprisingly negative relationship. All equations had relatively good fits with the data. CONCLUSION: While the preferred option is to derive costs from a random sample of prices in each setting, this option is often not available to analysts. In this case, we suggest that the approach described in this paper could represent a better option than basing policy recommendations on results that are built on the basis of a single, or a few, price observations.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2006

Determinants of variation in the cost of inpatient stays versus outpatient visits in hospitals: a multi-country analysis.

Information on hospital costs is key to many types of economic and financial analyses, yet many countries lack reliable estimates due partly to the time and resources required to undertake detailed costing studies. Accordingly, some analysts have used simple rules of thumb to estimate hospital unit costs, e.g., total hospital costs are allocated between departments assuming that the cost of an inpatient day equals a fixed number of outpatient visits. This paper first explores the extent to which these simple rules apply within and across countries. It then identifies determinants of variation in the relationship between the cost of outpatient visits and inpatient days, then uses the estimated relationship to calculate average costs of inpatient and outpatient stays for countries where data are not yet available. Cost information from 832 hospitals in 28 countries are used. We show that simple rules of thumb do not prove to be an accurate basis for cost estimates. The ratio of inpatient to outpatient unit costs varies with GDP per capita, hospital size, ownership, and occupancy rate. We show how the estimated relationship can be used to calculate a mean cost of inpatient stays and outpatient visits, taking into account differences in the levels of key determinants, and argue that, in the absence of a representative sample of hospital costing studies, this method can be used to estimate unit costs in the interim. Moreover, we suggest that the observed great variation in unit costs for similar hospitals in the same country means that this method might well be preferable to basing policy advice on the results of costing studies that cover only one, or a few hospitals, which might well be outliers.

Ambulatory Care↗
PubMed2005

Cost effectiveness analysis of strategies to combat malaria in developing countries.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the cost effectiveness of selected malaria control interventions in the context of reaching the millennium development goals for malaria. DESIGN: Generalised cost effectiveness analysis. DATA SOURCES: Efficacy data came from the literature and authors' calculations supported by expert opinion. Quantities for resource inputs came from the literature and from expert opinion; prices came from the WHO-CHOICE database. METHODS: Costs were assessed in year 2000 international dollars, and effects were assessed as disability adjusted life years averted by a 10 year implementation programme. Analysis was restricted to sub-Saharan regions where the most deadly form of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, is most prevalent. The impact on population health for various interventions, and their combinations, was evaluated at selected coverage levels by using a state-transition model. Sensitivity analysis was done for age weights and discounting. RESULTS: High coverage with artemisinin based combination treatments was found to be the most cost effective strategy for control of malaria in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. CONCLUSIONS: A much larger infusion of resources than those currently available is needed to make headway in the fight to roll back malaria. On cost effectiveness grounds, in most areas in sub-Saharan Africa greater coverage with highly effective combination treatments should be the cornerstone of malaria control. However, treatment alone can achieve less than half the total benefit obtainable through a combination of interventions-scaling up the use of impregnated mosquito nets or indoor spraying with insecticides is also critical. Intermittent presumptive treatment of pregnant women can bring a small but important additional health gain at relatively low cost.

Africa South of the Sahara↗
PubMed2005

Cost effectiveness analysis of strategies for child health in developing countries.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the costs and effectiveness of selected child health interventions-namely, case management of pneumonia, oral rehydration therapy, supplementation or fortification of staple foods with vitamin A or zinc, provision of supplementary food with counselling on nutrition, and immunisation against measles. DESIGN: Cost effectiveness analysis. DATA SOURCES: Efficacy data came from published systematic reviews and before and after evaluations of programmes. For resource inputs, quantities came from literature and expert opinion, and prices from the World Health Organization Choosing Interventions that are Cost Effective (WHO-CHOICE) database, RESULTS: Cost effectiveness ratios clustered in three groups, with fortification with zinc or vitamin A as the most cost effective intervention, and provision of supplementary food and counselling on nutrition as the least cost effective. Between these were oral rehydration therapy, case management of pneumonia, vitamin A or zinc supplementation, and measles immunisation. CONCLUSIONS: On the grounds of cost effectiveness, micronutrients and measles immunisation should be provided routinely to all children, in addition to oral rehydration therapy and case management of pneumonia for those who are sick. The challenge of malnutrition is not well addressed by existing interventions.

Child↗
PubMed2005

Understanding the impact of eliminating user fees: utilization and catastrophic health expenditures in Uganda.

There is currently considerable discussion between governments, international agencies, bilateral donors and advocacy groups on whether user fees levied at government health facilities in poor countries should be abolished. It is claimed that this would lead to greater access for the poor and reduce the risks of catastrophic health expenditures if all other factors remained constant, though other factors rarely remain constant in practice. Accordingly, it is important to understand what has actually happened when user fees have been abolished, and why. All fees at first level government health facilities in Uganda were removed in March 2001. This study explores the impact on health service utilization and catastrophic health expenditures using data from National Household Surveys undertaken in 1997, 2000 and 2003. Utilization increased for the non-poor, but at a lower rate than it had in the period immediately before fees were abolished. Utilization among the poor increased much more rapidly after the abolition of fees than beforehand. Unexpectedly, the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure among the poor did not fall. The most likely explanation is that frequent unavailability of drugs at government facilities after 2001 forced patients to purchase from private pharmacies. Informal payments to health workers may also have increased to offset the lost revenue from fees. Countries thinking of removing user charges should first examine what types of activities and inputs at the facility level are funded from the revenue collected by fees, and then develop mechanisms to ensure that these activities can be sustained subsequently.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Does the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness cost more than routine care? Results from the United Republic of Tanzania.

OBJECTIVE: The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) strategy is designed to address the five leading causes of childhood mortality, which together account for 70% of the 10 million deaths occurring among children worldwide annually. Although IMCI is associated with improved quality of care, which is a key determinant of better health outcomes, it has not yet been widely adopted, partly because it is assumed to be more expensive than routine care. Here we report the cost of IMCI compared with routine care in four districts in the United Republic of Tanzania. METHODS: Total district costs of child care were estimated from the societal perspective as the sum of child health-care costs incurred in a district at the household level, primary health-facility level and hospital level. We also included administrative and support costs incurred by national and district administrations. The incremental cost of IMCI is the difference in costs of child health-care between districts with and without IMCI, after standardization for population size. FINDINGS: The annual cost per child of caring for children less than five years old in districts with IMCI was USD 11.19, 44% lower than the cost in the districts without IMCI (USD 16.09). Much of the difference was due to higher rates of hospitalization of children less than 5 years old in the districts without IMCI. Not all of this difference can be attributed to IMCI but even when differences in hospitalization rates are excluded, the cost per child was still 6% lower in IMCI districts. CONCLUSION: IMCI was not associated with higher costs than routine child health-care in the four study districts in the United Republic of Tanzania. Given the evidence of improved quality of care in the IMCI districts, the results suggest that cost should not be a barrier to the adoption and scaling up of IMCI.

Child Health Services↗
PubMed2005

Capacity constraints to the adoption of new interventions: consultation time and the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness in Brazil.

Information on how health workers spend their time can help programme managers determine whether it is possible to add new services or activities to their schedules and at what cost. One set of interventions with the potential to reduce under-five mortality is training of facility-based health workers according to the guidelines for Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), along with improvements to supervision, procurement and information systems that are part of the IMCI strategy. Although it has been shown that IMCI is associated with improved quality of care, it is important to determine if it also requires additional consultation time. To investigate the amount of time required to provide clinical care to children under 5 years based on IMCI compared with routine care, a time and motion study was conducted in Northeast Brazil. IMCI-trained providers spent 1 minute and 26 seconds longer per consultation with under-fives than untrained providers, holding confounding factors constant at the mean levels observed in the sample. The difference was greater when patient load was low, and decreased as the number of patients a provider saw per day increased. This has three implications. First, the ability of the system to absorb new technologies depends on current capacity utilization. Secondly, the cost of treating a child also depends on the level of capacity utilization, at least in terms of provider time. Thirdly, where patient loads are high it is important to determine if the quality of care required for IMCI can be maintained.

Brazil↗
PubMed2004

World health system performance revisited: the impact of varying the relative importance of health system goals.

BACKGROUND: In 2002, the World Health Organization published a health system performance ranking for 191 member countries. The ranking was based on five indicators, with fixed weights common to all countries. METHODS: We investigate the feasibility and desirability of using mathematical programming techniques that allow weights to vary across countries to reflect their varying circumstances and objectives. RESULTS: By global distributional measures, scores and ranks are found to be not very sensitive to changes in weights, although differences can be large for individual countries. CONCLUSIONS: Building the flexibility of variable weights into calculation of the performance index is a useful way to respond to the debates and criticisms appearing since publication of the ranking.

Benchmarking↗
PubMed2003

Household catastrophic health expenditure: a multicountry analysis.

BACKGROUND: Health policy makers have long been concerned with protecting people from the possibility that ill health will lead to catastrophic financial payments and subsequent impoverishment. Yet catastrophic expenditure is not rare. We investigated the extent of catastrophic health expenditure as a first step to developing appropriate policy responses. METHODS: We used a cross-country analysis design. Data from household surveys in 59 countries were used to explore, by regression analysis, variables associated with catastrophic health expenditure. We defined expenditure as being catastrophic if a household's financial contributions to the health system exceed 40% of income remaining after subsistence needs have been met. FINDINGS: The proportion of households facing catastrophic payments from out-of-pocket health expenses varied widely between countries. Catastrophic spending rates were highest in some countries in transition, and in certain Latin American countries. Three key preconditions for catastrophic payments were identified: the availability of health services requiring payment, low capacity to pay, and the lack of prepayment or health insurance. INTERPRETATION: People, particularly in poor households, can be protected from catastrophic health expenditures by reducing a health system's reliance on out-of-pocket payments and providing more financial risk protection. Increase in the availability of health services is critical to improving health in poor countries, but this approach could raise the proportion of households facing catastrophic expenditure; risk protection policies would be especially important in this situation.

Catastrophic Illness↗
PubMed2003

Effectiveness and costs of interventions to lower systolic blood pressure and cholesterol: a global and regional analysis on reduction of cardiovascular-disease risk.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease accounts for much morbidity and mortality in developed countries and is becoming increasingly important in less developed regions. Systolic blood pressure above 115 mm Hg accounts for two-thirds of strokes and almost half of ischaemic heart disease cases, and cholesterol concentrations exceeding 3.8 mmol/L for 18% and 55%, respectively. We report estimates of the population health effects, and costs of selected interventions to reduce the risks associated with high cholesterol concentrations and blood pressure in areas of the world with differing epidemiological profiles. METHODS: Effect sizes were derived from systematic reviews or meta-analyses, and the effect on health outcomes projected over time for populations with differing age, sex, and epidemiological profiles. Incidence data from estimates of burden of disease were used in a four-state longitudinal population model to calculate disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) averted and patients treated. Costs were taken from previous publications, or estimated by local experts, in 14 regions. FINDINGS: Non-personal health interventions, including government action to stimulate a reduction in the salt content of processed foods, are cost-effective ways to limit cardiovascular disease and could avert over 21 million DALYs per year worldwide. Combination treatment for people whose risk of a cardiovascular event over the next 10 years is above 35% is also cost effective leading to substantial additional health benefits by averting an additional 63 million DALYs per year worldwide. INTERPRETATION: The combination of personal and non-personal health interventions evaluated here could lower the global incidence of cardiovascular events by as much as 50%.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Econometric estimation of country-specific hospital costs.

Information on the unit cost of inpatient and outpatient care is an essential element for costing, budgeting and economic-evaluation exercises. Many countries lack reliable estimates, however. WHO has recently undertaken an extensive effort to collect and collate data on the unit cost of hospitals and health centres from as many countries as possible; so far, data have been assembled from 49 countries, for various years during the period 1973-2000. The database covers a total of 2173 country-years of observations. Large gaps remain, however, particularly for developing countries. Although the long-term solution is that all countries perform their own costing studies, the question arises whether it is possible to predict unit costs for different countries in a standardized way for short-term use. The purpose of the work described in this paper, a modelling exercise, was to use the data collected across countries to predict unit costs in countries for which data are not yet available, with the appropriate uncertainty intervals.The model presented here forms part of a series of models used to estimate unit costs for the WHO-CHOICE project. The methods and the results of the model, however, may be used to predict a number of different types of country-specific unit costs, depending on the purpose of the exercise. They may be used, for instance, to estimate the costs per bed-day at different capacity levels; the "hotel" component of cost per bed-day; or unit costs net of particular components such as drugs.In addition to reporting estimates for selected countries, the paper shows that unit costs of hospitals vary within countries, sometimes by an order of magnitude. Basing cost-effectiveness studies or budgeting exercises on the results of a study of a single facility, or even a small group of facilities, is likely to be misleading.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2003

Cost-effectiveness analysis: can we reduce variability in costing methods?

OBJECTIVES: The need for consistency and standardization of methods for economic appraisals has been recognized for some time and has led to the development of several sets of guidelines for economic evaluations and for costs. Despite this, considerable diversity is still apparent in applied studies. Some of these diversities might be defensible, and some might not. The objectives of this study are to explore sources of variations in the methods used in applied studies and to discuss the nature of these variations and the possibility of reducing some of them. METHODS: We first use a systematic approach to identify the major sources of variation in costing methods used in applied economic evaluations. We then compare the methods used with the recommendations made in available guidelines. RESULTS: Four possible sources of variation are identified. The first is where guidelines do not agree in their recommendations; therefore, it is not surprising that applied studies use different methods. The second is where guidelines agree in principle but provide little detail on how to comply with their recommendations; and the third is where a particular methodological issue is not discussed in guidelines. The fourth reason is simply lack of compliance with accepted guidelines. CONCLUSIONS: Variability in costing methods used in applied studies raises questions about the validity of their results and makes it difficult to compare the results of different studies. We discuss the implications for the transferability and generalizability of results and suggest ways to minimize the variability in the methods so that the results of costing studies and economic evaluations can be of more value to policy-makers.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗