Methods for Prioritisation of Diseases: Case Study of Zoonoses in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Prioritisation of diseases is an essential tool for policy-makers in charge of allocating resources for surveillance and control programmes or for research projects, to target diseases that need to be addressed ahead of others. Nevertheless, methods for prioritisation need to be transparent, standardised and repeatable to be effective and objective in setting priorities. To date, various models have been developed, experimenting different approaches, but it remains some room for improvement in the design of such tools. The definition of the criteria – indicators used to assess diseases regarding the objective of the prioritisation exercise – is one of the cornerstones of the efficiency of the methodology. In previous developed methods, this step was usually poorly addressed and up to now, no standardised method has been developed and described to select relevant and accurate criteria. Through the use of an electronic-based questionnaire to collect data about criteria from a large population of respondents, this study, based on the analysis of zoonoses and their impact in Southeast Asia, aimed at investigating an innovative approach to identify criteria that ensure a good differentiation between the diseases. The findings of this study highlighted that refining an initial list of criteria using multivariate analysis was a reliable approach to select clear, accurate and relevant criteria that allow a differentiation between diseases for a further prioritisation exercise. Furthermore, this study indicated that using an electronic-based questionnaire, carefully designed, might be an interesting alternative of expert opinion elicitation, for the collection of data. Finally, the results of this study opened to other new perspectives to develop and improve methods for the prioritisation of infectious diseases.