Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39780075›Full record

ArticleBMC public health2025

Public health economic modelling in evaluations of salt and/or alcohol policies: a systematic scoping review.

Joseph Prince Mensah, Chloe Thomas, Robert Akparibo, Alan Brennan

Abstract readScoping Review
In one paragraph

Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Joseph Prince MensahSheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. jpmensah1@sheffield.ac.uk.
Chloe ThomasSheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Robert AkpariboSheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
Alan BrennanSheffield Centre for Health and Related Research (SCHARR), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.

Funding

Wellcome TrustWellcome Trust 218462/Z/19/Z
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundPublic health economic modelling is an approach capable of managing the intricacies involved in evaluating interventions without direct observational evidence. It is used to estimate potential long-term health benefits and cost outcomes. The aim of this review was to determine the scope of health economic models in the evaluation of salt and/or alcohol interventions globally, to provide an overview of the literature and the modelling methods and structures used.

methodsSearches were conducted in Medline, Embase, and EconLit, and complemented with citation searching of key reviews. The searches were conducted between 13/11/2022 and 8/11/2023, with no limits to publication date. We applied a health economic search filter to select model-based economic evaluations of public health policies and interventions related to alcohol consumption, dietary salt intake, or both. Data on the study characteristics, modelling approaches, and the interventions were extracted and synthesised.

resultsThe search identified 1,958 articles, 82 of which were included. These included comparative risk assessments (29%), multistate lifetables (27%), Markov cohort (22%), microsimulation (13%), and other (9%) modelling methods. The included studies evaluated alcohol and/or salt interventions in a combined total of 64 countries. Policies from the UK (23%) and Australia (18%) were the most frequently evaluated. A total of 58% of the models evaluated salt policies, 38% evaluated alcohol policies, and only three (4% of included modelling studies) evaluated both alcohol- and salt-related policies. The range of diseases modelled covered diabetes and cardiovascular disease-related outcomes, cancers, and alcohol-attributable harm. Systolic blood pressure was a key intermediate risk factor in the excessive salt-to-disease modelling pathway for 40 (83%) of the salt modelling studies. The effects of alcohol consumption on adverse health effects were modelled directly using estimates of the relative risk of alcohol-attributable diseases.

conclusionsThis scoping review highlights the substantial utilisation of health economic modelling for estimating the health and economic impact of interventions targeting salt or alcohol consumption. The limited use of combined alcohol and salt policy models presents a pressing need for models that could explore their integrated risk factor pathways for cost-effectiveness comparisons between salt and alcohol policies to inform primary prevention policymaking.

Indexed as

Alcohol DrinkingHealth PolicyModels, EconomicSodium Chloride, DietaryCost-Benefit AnalysisHumansPublic HealthSodium Chloride, DietaryAlcoholCardiovascular diseaseModellingNon-communicable diseasesSaltScoping reviewSodium reduction

Identifiers

PMID39780075
PMCPMC11707988

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.