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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
John M. Tilford, PhD, Center for Applied Research and Evaluation, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Arkansas Children's Hospital, 800 Marshall Street, Little Rock, AR 72202-3591, 501-320-3340, tilfordmickj@uams.edu
Background: To perform an economic evaluation of resources devoted to the prevention of spina bifida, analysts need information on caregiver time costs and the health utilities of children with spina bifida. One (unpublished) study has addressed caregiver time costs associated with spina bifida. No study has reported health utilities of children with spina bifida based on parental reports. Objective: This study provides data on caregiver time costs and health utilities of children with spina bifida. Methods: Children with spina bifida were randomly identified from a state birth defects registry and interviewed by telephone. Case families that agreed to participate were asked to provide the name of a family with a child of similar age that lived in their neighborhood. We used the Health Utilities Index to measure utilities in children, the Quality of Well Being Scale to measure utilities in caregivers, and employment history over the past year to calculate time costs. The same instruments were administered to control families. Results: We currently have data on over 50 case families and 20 control families and will have 100 case families and 50 control families by June 2002. Our current participation rate is 55/71 for cases and 21/23 for controls. Identifying control families is the major study obstacle to date. Our current findings are preliminary, but we will report findings for case children based on three lesion locations: lower sacral, lower lumbar, and thoracic or higher lumbar.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Birth Defects, Economic Analysis
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.