ArticlePopulation health metrics2015
How much might a society spend on life-saving interventions at different ages while remaining cost-effective? A case study in a country with detailed data.
Article in Population health metrics, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- The cost of drug repurposing: parallel economic evaluation of mirtazapine for severe breathlessness in the multinational BETTER-B trial.BMC health services research · 2025Trial
- Rugby Fans in Training New Zealand (RUFIT NZ): a randomized controlled trial to assess the effectiveness of a healthy lifestyle program for overweight men delivered through professional rugby clubs.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2023Trial
- Article
- Long-term cost-effectiveness analysis of rugby fans in training-New Zealand: a body weight reduction programme for males.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Prioritization of intervention domains to prevent cardiovascular disease: a country-level case study using global burden of disease and local data.Population health metrics · 2023Article
- Development and Validation of a Predictive Model to Identify Patients With an Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2021Article
- Health Gain, Cost Impacts, and Cost-Effectiveness of a Mass Media Campaign to Promote Smartphone Apps for Physical Activity: Modeling Study.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2020Article
- Can cost-effectiveness results be combined into a coherent league table? Case study from one high-income country.Population health metrics · 2019Article
- Protecting an island nation from extreme pandemic threats: Proof-of-concept around border closure as an intervention.PloS one · 2017Article
- Home modification to reduce falls at a health district level: Modeling health gain, health inequalities and health costs.PloS one · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveWe aimed to estimate the maximum intervention cost (EMIC) a society could invest in a life-saving intervention at different ages while remaining cost-effective according to a user-specified cost-effectiveness threshold.
methodsNew Zealand (NZ) was used as a case study, and a health system perspective was taken. Data from NZ life tables and morbidity data from a burden of disease study were used to estimate health-adjusted life-years (HALYs) gained by a life-saving intervention. Health system costs were estimated from a national database of all publicly funded health events (hospitalizations, outpatient events, pharmaceuticals, etc.). For illustrative purposes we followed the WHO-CHOICE approach and used a cost-effectiveness threshold of the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita (NZ$45,000 or US$30,000 per HALY). We then calculated EMICs for an "ideal" life-saving intervention that fully returned survivors to the same average morbidity, mortality, and cost trajectories as the rest of their cohort.
findingsThe EMIC of the "ideal" life-saving intervention varied markedly by age: NZ$1.3 million (US$880,000) for an intervention to save the life of a child, NZ$0.8 million (US$540,000) for a 50-year-old, and NZ$0.235 million (US$158,000) for an 80-year-old. These results were predictably very sensitive to the choice of discount rate and to the selected cost-effectiveness threshold. Using WHO data, we produced an online calculator to allow the performance of similar calculations for all other countries.
conclusionsWe present an approach to estimating maximal cost-effective investment in life-saving health interventions, under various assumptions. Our online calculator allows this approach to be applied in other countries. Policymakers could use these estimates as a rapid screening tool to determine if more detailed cost-effectiveness analyses of potential life-saving interventions might be worthwhile or which proposed life-saving interventions are very unlikely to benefit from such additional research.
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