Disregarding these method ological obstacles could implicitly lead to discrimination against the elderly in terms of health promotion and disease prevention and , hence , an age-based rationing of public health care
Background In the light of demographic developments health promotion interventions for older people are gaining importance .
In addition to method ological challenges arising from the economic evaluation of health promotion interventions in general , there are specific method ological problems for the particular target group of older people .
There are especially four main method ological challenges that are discussed in the literature .
They concern measurement and valuation of informal caregiving , accounting for productivity costs , effects of unrelated cost in added life years and the inclusion of ‘ beyond-health ’ benefits .
This paper focuses on the question whether and to what extent specific method ological requirements are actually met in applied health economic evaluations .
Economic evaluation of a community based exercise programme to prevent falls
OBJECTIVE To assess the incremental costs and cost effectiveness of implementing a home based muscle strengthening and balance retraining programme that reduced falls and injuries in older women . DESIGN An economic evaluation carried out within a r and omised controlled trial with two years of follow up . Participants were individually prescribed an exercise programme ( exercise group , n=116 ) or received usual care and social visits ( control group , n=117 ) . SETTING 17 general practice s in Dunedin , New Zeal and . PARTICIPANTS Women aged 80 years and older living in the community and invited by their general practitioner to take part . MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Number of falls and injuries related to falls , costs of implementing the intervention , healthcare service costs result ing from falls and total healthcare service costs during the trial . Cost effectiveness was measured as the incremental cost of implementing the exercise programme per fall event prevented . MAIN RESULTS 27 % of total hospital costs during the trial were related to falls . However , there were no significant differences in health service costs between the two groups . Implementing the exercise programme for one and two years respectively cost $ 314 and $ 265 ( 1995 New Zeal and dollars ) per fall prevented , and $ 457 and $ 426 per fall result ing in a moderate or serious injury prevented . CONCLUSIONS The costs result ing from falls make up a substantial proportion of the hospital costs for older people . Despite a reduction in falls as a result of this home exercise programme there was no significant reduction in healthcare costs . However , the results reported will provide information on the cost effectiveness of the programme for those making decisions on falls prevention strategies
Disregarding these method ological obstacles could implicitly lead to discrimination against the elderly in terms of health promotion and disease prevention and , hence , an age-based rationing of public health care
Background In the light of demographic developments health promotion interventions for older people are gaining importance .
In addition to method ological challenges arising from the economic evaluation of health promotion interventions in general , there are specific method ological problems for the particular target group of older people .
There are especially four main method ological challenges that are discussed in the literature .
They concern measurement and valuation of informal caregiving , accounting for productivity costs , effects of unrelated cost in added life years and the inclusion of ‘ beyond-health ’ benefits .
This paper focuses on the question whether and to what extent specific method ological requirements are actually met in applied health economic evaluations .