Economic evaluations of mass drug administration: the importance of economies of scale and scope
Author(s)
Turner, Hugo C
Toor, Jaspreet
Hollingsworth, T Deirdre
Anderson, Roy M
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
It is recognized that changing the current approaches for the control of the neglected tropical diseases will be needed to reach the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2020 goals. Consequently, it is important that economic evaluations of the alternative approaches are conducted. A vital component of such evaluations is the issue of how the intervention’s costs should be incorporated. We discuss this issue—focusing on mass drug administration. We argue that the common approach of assuming an intervention’s cost per treatment is constant, regardless of the number of individuals treated, is a misleading way to consider the delivery costs of mass drug administration due to the occurrence of economies/diseconomies of scale and scope. Greater care and consideration are required when the costs are incorporated into such analyses. Without this, these economic evaluations could potentially lead to incorrect policy recommendations.
Date Issued
2018-04-15
Date Acceptance
2017-11-07
Citation
Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2018, 66 (8), pp.1298-1303
ISSN
1058-4838
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Start Page
1298
End Page
1303
Journal / Book Title
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Volume
66
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000429441600028&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Immunology
Infectious Diseases
Microbiology
Neglected tropical diseases
costs
economic evaluations
mass drug administration
NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES
COST-EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSIS
UP HEALTH INTERVENTIONS
SCHISTOSOMA-MANSONI
ASCARIS INFECTION
ONCHOCERCIASIS
PREVENTION
AFRICA
PRAZIQUANTEL
ELIMINATION
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2017-11-08