Oral

Grand Hyatt, Constitution Ballroom D Purpose of Session: To examine three examples of the contribution of economics and economists to Evidence-Based Public Health (EBPH) efforts to evaluation interventions or programs changes. EBPH is an essential part of the accreditation movement, and economists’ estimation of economic burden of illness, or program benefits and costs, or an intervention’s value are important factors in interventions’ deployments or programs’ maintenance and policy surveillance in the austere environment of today. There is a strong movement among the Public Health discipline toward an Evidence-Based Public Health (Brownson, et al, Oxford Univ Press, 2010) strategy for intervention, program and policy evaluation. During this era of public funding austerity and the accreditation of public health departments across the country, the opportunity has never been better for health economists’ to contribute. However, we must translate our economic jargon and techniques into acceptable terminology for the crucial audiences – the public, the public health workers and public policy makers. Working with colleagues in public health, and following the framework of EBPH as a tool to achieve that goal, we should see more economic evaluations in the coming years being of real value to decision makers and policy refinement. This session will explore examples of economic estimates for: cost of care for three neuromuscular chronic conditions; the benefit-to-cost comparison of a major national program to lipid standardization and the economic savings of a school-based, teen-pregnancy intervention.

Session Objectives: 1. Explain and contrast the conceptual underpinnings of economists’ estimation cost techniques, including: cost of care through claims analysis; valuation of program’s benefit through expert opinion of attributable-proportion of long-term outcomes (i.e., life-years gained) through willingness to pay estimates, and human capital approach to intervention costing. 2. Compare the structured logic-model framework of Evidence-Based Public Health’s (EBPH) for a program’s short-, intermediate- and long-impact and the economist’s estimates of ($ Benefit) versus program costs. 3. List three types of analyses (e.g., Cost-of-care estimates, Benefit-to-Cost Ratio; and Short- and Long-term Cost-savings) that can be expected from health economists when collaborating on program or intervention evaluations.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)