142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

313958
Economic Cost of Communicable Disease Services in Colorado

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 11:00 AM - 11:15 AM

Adam J. Atherly, PhD , Department of Health Systems, Management and Policy, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO
Sarah Lampe, MPH , Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials, Denver, CO
Lisa VanRaemdonck, MPH, MSW , Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials, Denver, CO
Melanie Mason , Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO
In our project, we identify the economic costs associated with Communicable Disease Monitoring/ Surveillance.  To estimate the cost of the selected services, we use a micro-costing approach.  We conduct a series of key informant interviews with workflow diagrams and focus groups to identify major variable and fixed costs associated with the selected services to inform the development of a survey to collect cost data.  To calculate marginal costs, we have staff members keep daily activity logs recording their activities during each 15 minute interval of work over a two week time period. We randomly select both days and hours within each day to fill out the survey to minimize respondent burden. We augment the cost survey with a manager survey asking about the number of FTE’s associated with each activity and also the number of staff hours. We also estimate the capital cost associated with the program using rental costs of similar spaces (or actual rental costs, if applicable).   Methodologically, we estimate a statistical cost function using cost (from the microcosting data) as the dependent variable and independent variables such as characteristics of the agency, the community and services provided. We also engage in a sensitivity analysis of our estimates. The sensitivity analysis will include a comparison of the managerial and activity-log based data and also different fixed cost allocation methods.  

Learning Areas:

Public health administration or related administration
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Explain the cost of delivering communicable disease services in Colorado.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the PI on the project and am responsible for the methods and analysis.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.