Adjusting for inflation and currency changes within health economic studies
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Published version
Author(s)
Turner, Hugo C
Lauer, Jeremy A
Tran, Bach Xuan
Teerawattananon, Yot
Jit, Mark
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Within health economic studies, it is often necessary to adjust costs obtained from different time periods for inflation. Nevertheless, many studies do not report the methods used for this in sufficient detail. In this article, we outline the principal methods used to adjust for inflation, with a focus on studies relating to healthcare interventions in low- and middle-income countries. We also discuss issues relating to converting local currencies to international dollars and US$ and adjusting cost data collected from other countries or previous studies. METHODS: We outlined the 3 main methods used to adjust for inflation for studies in these settings: exchanging the local currency to US$ or international dollars and then inflating using US inflation rates (method 1); inflating the local currency using local inflation rates and then exchanging to US$ or international dollars (method 2); splitting the costs into tradable and nontradable resources and using method 1 on the tradable resources and method 2 on the nontradable resources (method 3). RESULTS: In a hypothetical example of adjusting a cost of US$100 incurred in Vietnam from 2006 to 2016 prices, the adjusted cost from the 3 methods were US$116.84, US$172.09, and US$161.04, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The different methods for adjusting for inflation can yield substantially different results. We make recommendations regarding the most appropriate method for various scenarios. Moving forward, it is vital that studies report the methodology they use to adjust for inflation more transparently.
Date Issued
2019-09
Date Acceptance
2019-03-20
Citation
Value in Health, 2019, 22 (9), pp.1026-1032
ISSN
1098-3015
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1026
End Page
1032
Journal / Book Title
Value in Health
Volume
22
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
© 2019, ISPOR–The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jval.2019.03.021
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31511179
PII: S1098-3015(19)32149-7
Subjects
currency changes
global health
health economics
inflation
international dollars
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Date Publish Online
2019-06-14