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Accounting for the cost of scaling‐up health interventions

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  • Benjamin Johns
  • Rob Baltussen

Abstract

Recent studies such as the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health have highlighted the need for expanding the coverage of services for HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, immunisations and other diseases. In order for policy makers to plan for these changes, they need to analyse the change in costs when interventions are ‘scaled‐up’ to cover greater percentages of the population. Previous studies suggest that applying current unit costs to an entire population can misconstrue the true costs of an intervention. This study presents the methodology used in WHO‐CHOICE's generalised cost effectiveness analysis, which includes non‐linear cost functions for health centres, transportation and supervision costs, as well as the presence of fixed costs of establishing a health infrastructure. Results show changing marginal costs as predicted by economic theory. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Benjamin Johns & Rob Baltussen, 2004. "Accounting for the cost of scaling‐up health interventions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(11), pages 1117-1124, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:13:y:2004:i:11:p:1117-1124
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.880
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    3. Yoko Ibuka & A. David Paltiel & Alison P. Galvani, 2012. "Impact of Program Scale and Indirect Effects on the Cost-Effectiveness of Vaccination Programs," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 32(3), pages 442-446, May.
    4. Pankaj Bahuguna & Lorna Guinness & Sameer Sharma & Akashdeep Singh Chauhan & Laura Downey & Shankar Prinja, 2020. "Estimating the Unit Costs of Healthcare Service Delivery in India: Addressing Information Gaps for Price Setting and Health Technology Assessment," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 18(5), pages 699-711, October.
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    6. Johns, Benjamin & Steinhardt, Laura & Walker, Damian G. & Peters, David H. & Bishai, David, 2013. "Horizontal equity and efficiency at primary health care facilities in rural Afghanistan: A seemingly unrelated regression approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 25-31.
    7. Brooke E Nichols & Charles A B Boucher & Janneke H van Dijk & Phil E Thuma & Jan L Nouwen & Rob Baltussen & Janneke van de Wijgert & Peter M A Sloot & David A M C van de Vijver, 2013. "Cost-Effectiveness of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in Preventing HIV-1 Infections in Rural Zambia: A Modeling Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(3), pages 1-10, March.
    8. Naira Matevosyan, 2015. "The Overuse of Cesarean Section: Medical, Legal, Research, and Economical Pitfalls," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 6(4), pages 1090-1103, December.
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