IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v26y2006i2p182-193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Cost-Effectiveness of Strategies to Reduce Mortality from an Intentional Release of Aerosolized Anthrax Spores

Author

Listed:
  • R. Scott Braithwaite

    (Yale University School of Medicine, Section of General Internal Medicine, West Haven VA CT Healthcare System, VACS 11 ACSL-G, 950 Campbell Avenue, West Haven, CT 06516 ronald.braithwaite@med.va.gov)

  • Douglas Fridsma

    (Section of Biomedical Informatics, University Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA)

  • Mark S. Roberts

    (Section Decision Sciences and Clinical Systems Modeling, University Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA)

Abstract

Background . Intentional exposures to aerosolized Bacillus anthracis spores have caused fatalities. Objective. To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of strategies to reduce mortality from future inhalational anthrax exposures. Methods. Computer cohort simulation of a 100,000-person single-site exposure (worst-case scenario) and a 100-person multiplesite exposure (resembling the recent US attack). For each scenario, universal vaccination and an emergency surveillance and response (ESR) system were compared with a default strategy that assumed eventual discovery of the exposure. Results. If an exposure was unlikely to occur or was small in scale, neither vaccination nor an ESR system was cost-effective. If an exposure was certain and large in scale, an ESR system was more cost-effective than vaccination ($73 v. $29,600 per life-year saved), and a rapid response saved more lives than improved surveillance. Conclusions. Strategies to reduce deaths from anthrax attacks are cost-effective only if large exposures are certain. A faster response is more beneficial than enhanced surveillance

Suggested Citation

  • R. Scott Braithwaite & Douglas Fridsma & Mark S. Roberts, 2006. "The Cost-Effectiveness of Strategies to Reduce Mortality from an Intentional Release of Aerosolized Anthrax Spores," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 26(2), pages 182-193, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:26:y:2006:i:2:p:182-193
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X06286794
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X06286794
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X06286794?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wetter, D.C. & Daniell, W.E. & Treser, C.D., 2001. "Hospital preparedness for victims of chemical or biological terrorism," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(5), pages 710-716.
    2. Geiger, H.J., 2001. "Terrorism, biological weapons, and bonanzas: Assessing the real threat to public health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 91(5), pages 708-709.
    3. Ron Brookmeyer & Elizabeth Johnson & Robert Bollinger, 2004. "Public health vaccination policies for containing an anthrax outbreak," Nature, Nature, vol. 432(7019), pages 901-904, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Margaret L. Brandeau, 2019. "OR Forum—Public Health Preparedness: Answering (Largely Unanswerable) Questions with Operations Research—The 2016–2017 Philip McCord Morse Lecture," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 700-710, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nathaniel Hupert & Alvin I. Mushlin & Mark A. Callahan, 2002. "Modeling the Public Health Response to Bioterrorism: Using Discrete Event Simulation to Design Antibiotic Distribution Centers," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 22(1_suppl), pages 17-25, September.
    2. Michael A. Hamilton & Tao Hong & Elizabeth Casman & Patrick L. Gurian, 2015. "Risk‐Based Decision Making for Reoccupation of Contaminated Areas Following a Wide‐Area Anthrax Release," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(7), pages 1348-1363, July.
    3. Ibrahim Musa & Hyun Woo Park & Lkhagvadorj Munkhdalai & Keun Ho Ryu, 2018. "Global Research on Syndromic Surveillance from 1993 to 2017: Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-20, September.
    4. Judith Legrand & Joseph R Egan & Ian M Hall & Simon Cauchemez & Steve Leach & Neil M Ferguson, 2009. "Estimating the Location and Spatial Extent of a Covert Anthrax Release," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(1), pages 1-9, April.
    5. Ron Brookmeyer, 2005. "Biosecurity and the role of statisticians," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(2), pages 263-266, March.
    6. Margaret L. Brandeau, 2019. "OR Forum—Public Health Preparedness: Answering (Largely Unanswerable) Questions with Operations Research—The 2016–2017 Philip McCord Morse Lecture," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 700-710, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:26:y:2006:i:2:p:182-193. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.