This resource brief provides current, high-quality resources about cost effectiveness analysis and cost-benefit analysis in maternal and child health. These two economic evaluation techniques are used to examine the costs of interventions relative to the benefits that they produce, either the costs and consequences of competing interventions for a given client group within a given budget or the costs of a policy or program over time compared to improvements in health expressed in monetary (dollar) terms (see glossary).
In addition, the brief provides links to discussions of effective programs and evidence-based practices that achieve health and wellness goals but that are not analyzed in terms of costs for the benefits achieved.
The brief is intended to help policy makers and program administrators make decisions about funding services and programs in maternal and child health.
Association of State and Territorial Health
Officials: Making the Case for MCH Programs
Resources exploring cost-based or economic-based
analyses of programs and policies, including
a glossary, annotated bibliography of peer-reviewed
studies, and examples from states that have conducted
cost analyses of programs.
Urban
Institute Researcher Toolkit: Cost-Benefit
Analysis
Definition of cost-benefit analysis, with examples.
Washington State Department of Health, Genetic Services Policy Project: The role of cost-effectiveness analysis in decision making about genetic services. 2008.
Definitions of cost benefit analysis and cost effectiveness analysis, overview of their strengths and weaknesses.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): Evidence-Based Practice Centers
Evidence reports and technology assessments on topics relevant to clinical, social
science/behavioral, economic, and other health care organization and delivery
issues.
Child Care and Early Education Research Connections
Scholarly research, policy briefs, government reports, data and instruments
from a wide range of disciplines and U.S. and international sources, including
multiple federal agencies. Search the research collection using terms such
as “cost effective” or “cost benefit.”
Child Welfare Information Gateway: Making an Economic Case
Resources on cost-of-injury analysis, cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and calculating program costs.
National Business Group on Health (NBGH)
Employer toolkits and other resources that explain
the business case for addressing health conditions
in employees and their families and that provide
evidence-informed model benefit plans to address
these concerns. In particular, see Investing in Maternal and Child Health: An Employer's Toolkit.
National Information Center on Health Services
Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR)
Information and training
including online courses such as Health
Economics Information Resources: A
Self-Study Course, which
guides users in the identification, retrieval,
and assessment of high quality health economic
evaluation studies and related publications.
Its HSR
Information Central provides
links to literature, data sources, legislation,
and other tools, and training activities.
National Institute for Health Research: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (England)
Databases of systematic reviews, economic evaluations, and health technology assessments on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of health care interventions world-wide.
Partnership
for America’s Economic Success
(PAES)
Research on the economic benefits of investments
in young children and the policy changes needed to
fund services commensurate with their economic
value and mobilization efforts to involve the business community. The
partnership is managed by Pew Charitable Trusts.
PubMed
Over 18 million citations and abstracts from
MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical
articles indexed by the National Library of Medicine
back to the 1950s, with links to full text of
articles when available.
Search tips: Enter the phrase “Cost-benefit analysis” in the search box. Click Limits, and choose the box for English (or other desired language). Then click Search. Or use broader term “costs and cost analysis.”
To narrow your search, add terms such as “child health services” or “maternal health services.” Also limit the search by date (using Advanced Search) to retrieve only more recent items.
Trust for America's Health
Reports, advocacy materials, and state data on major health issues such as child health, obesity, food safety, health disparities and others. Many resources discuss cost effectiveness.
These bibliographies are drawn from MCHLine®, the online library catalog of the Maternal and Child Health Library. They focus on recent publications from government agencies and national organizations such as reports, policy analyses, issue briefs, guidelines, training materials, and selected consumer information. The organizations list focuses on government agencies and national organizations that work on a broad range of maternal and child health issues and that provide information to the public.
For more information on this topic, use the MCH Library Advanced Search using the term Cost effectiveness.
Authors: Olivia K. Pickett, M.A.,
M.L.S., MCH Library
December 2011
These resources are provided to address language barrier issues.
TRANSLATION DISCLAIMER: Automatic translations provide the sense of a translated document, but they are not as reliable as translations by a trained professional. Therefore, any automatic translations should be used with caution.
