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Cost-Effectiveness and Cost-benefit Analysis in MCH
Resource Brief

Table of Contents

Introduction
Overview
Web Sites
Related MCH Library Resources


Introduction

This resource brief provides current, high-quality resources about cost effectiveness analysis and cost-benefit analysis in maternal and child health, two economic evaluation techniques that 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.

Overview

Association of State and Territorial Health Officials: Making the Case for Maternal and Child Health Programs
Resources exploring cost-based or economic-based analyses of programs and policies, including a glossary, annotated bibliography of peer-reviewed studies, examples from states that have conducted cost analyses of programs, and additional resources.

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
Definitions of cost benefit analysis and cost effectiveness analysis, overview of their strengths and weaknesses.

Web Sites

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, specifically those that are common, expensive, and/or significant for the Medicare and Medicaid populations.

Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS)
Tools to help Medicaid stakeholders identify health care strategies with potential to both improve quality and control costs, including the Return on Investment (ROI) Evidence Base, a selection of studies for clinical conditions of high priority within Medicaid populations, including asthma, depression, and high-risk pregnancy.

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.”

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.

National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR)
Training activities 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 Health Service Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED) (England) 
Online database of over 7,000 abstracts of quality assessed economic evaluations from around the globe, as well as other sources of health economics data.

Partnership for America’s Economic Success (PAES)
Research on the economic benefits of investments in children and the policy changes needed to fund services commensurate with their economic value.

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 on the Limits tab, and choose the box for Humans and the box for English (or other desired language). Then click the Go button. 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 the Limits tab) to retrieve only more recent items.

Trust for America’s Health: Prevention for a Healthier America
Report and other materials from a study in 2008 that found cost savings from funds spent on community-based programs to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent smoking and other tobacco use.

Related MCH Library Resources

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 efectiveness.

Authors: Olivia K. Pickett, M.A., M.L.S., Beth DeFrancis Sun, MCH Library
August 2008