Using the Results of Economic Evaluations of Public Health Interventions: Challenges and Proposals

Abstract

Abstract: Faced with the combined pressures of economic recession and growing healthcare costs, public health administrators recognize the value of using economic arguments to justify public health interventions. Given the expense and the time involved in conducting new economic evaluations, decision-makers regularly speculate on the possibility of using results from studies done in a different context. This article analyzes the potential for using the results of economic evaluations of public health interventions in contexts other than those in which the studies were done. More specifically, it sheds light on issues of quality and transferability of analyses for public health decision-making and offers practical proposals for increasing the transferability of studies.