validity of disability adjusted life years The value of DALY life: problems with ethics and service Email alerting the top left of the article Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article-sign up in the box at

OBJECTIVE To assess from a health sector perspective the incremental cost-effectiveness of eight drug treatment scenarios for established schizophrenia. METHOD Using a standardized methodology, costs and outcomes are modelled over the lifetime of prevalent cases of schizophrenia in Australia in 2000. A two-stage approach to assessment of health benefit is used. The first stage involves a quan...

INTRODUCTION Calculating the cost per disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) averted associated with interventions is an increasing popular means of assessing the cost-effectiveness of strategies to improve population health. However, there has been no systematic attempt to characterize the literature and its evolution. METHODS We conducted a systematic review of cost-effectiveness studies re...

BACKGROUND Access to HIV-1 voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) is severely limited in less-developed countries. We undertook a multisite trial of HIV-1 VCT to assess its impact, cost, and cost-effectiveness in less-developed country settings. METHODS The cost-effectiveness of HIV-1 VCT was estimated for a hypothetical cohort of 10000 people seeking VCT in urban east Africa. Outcomes were ...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the costs and effects of alternative strategies for annual screening of school children for refractive errors, and the provision of spectacles, in different WHO sub-regions in Africa, Asia, America and Europe. METHODS We developed a mathematical simulation model for uncorrected refractive error, using prevailing prevalence and incidence rates. Remission rates reflected t...

BACKGROUND Physical inactivity is a key risk factor for chronic disease, but a growing number of people are not achieving the recommended levels of physical activity necessary for good health. Australians are no exception; despite Australia's image as a sporting nation, with success at the elite level, the majority of Australians do not get enough physical activity. There are many options for i...

BACKGROUND The cost effectiveness of a general practice-based program for managing coronary heart disease (CHD) patients in Australia remains uncertain. We have explored this through an economic model. METHODS A secondary prevention program based on initial clinical assessment and 3 monthly review, optimising of pharmacotherapies and lifestyle modification, supported by a disease registry and...

BACKGROUND The Carlos III Health Institute (Instituto de Salud Carlos III - Spain) allocates funding to health research support in the Spanish National Health System (NHS). This study aimed to analyse the correlation of health research fund allocations in the NHS and the burden of disease in Spanish population. METHODS Cross-sectional study. Burden of disease measures were calculated: disabil...

Land use change is the most significant driver linked to global species extinctions. In Northern Australia, the landscape is still relatively intact with very low levels of clearing. However, a re-energized political discourse around creating a northern food bowl means that currently intact ecosystems in northern Australia could be under imminent threat from increased land clearing and water ex...

BACKGROUND This paper uses the Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) to estimate disease burden at a local level and relates this to programme budget (PB) data. METHODS We estimated DALY using the global burden of disease (GBD) template. For years of life lost, local mortality data were used and for years of life with disability, the GBD estimates from World Health Organization EURO A region (...