BACKGROUND The risk of viral infection associated with blood transfusion is lower than ever before because of aggressive screening and testing practices. NAT technology has lowered that risk even further but at an additional cost to the health-care system. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS Marginal cost-effectiveness of NAT for HIV, HCV, and HBV in whole-blood donations was calculated with a previousl...

INTRODUCTION Local, state, and national health policy makers require information on the economic burden of oral disease and the cost-effectiveness of oral health programs to set policies and allocate resources. In this study, we estimate the cost savings associated with community water fluoridation programs (CWFPs) in Colorado and potential cost savings if Colorado communities without fluoridat...

BACKGROUND All clinical practice guidelines recommend thiazides as a first-choice drug for the management of uncomplicated hypertension. Thiazides are also the lowest priced antihypertensive drugs. Despite this, the use of thiazides is much lower than that of other drug-classes. We wanted to estimate the potential for savings if thiazides were used as the first choice drug for the management of...

OBJECTIVE To support tobacco control policies in Korea by providing the estimated annual economic burden attributed to cigarette smoking. METHODS The following two different approaches were used to estimate the cost: "disease specific" and "all causes". In the disease specific approach, we focused on estimating direct and indirect costs involved in treatments of cardiovascular, respiratory, a...

OBJECTIVE To measure the economic burden associated with diabetes mellitus in Latin America and the Caribbean. METHODS Prevalence estimates of diabetes for the year 2000 were used to calculated direct and indirect costs of diabetes mellitus. Direct costs included costs due to drugs, hospitalizations, consultations and management of complications. The human capital approach was used to calcula...

To assess the total medical costs and productivity losses associated with the 1993 waterborne outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, including the average cost per person with mild, moderate, and severe illness, we conducted a retrospective cost-of-illness analysis using data from 11 hospitals in the greater Milwaukee area and epidemiologic data collected during the outbreak. Th...

The relationship between the meter and the nanometer can be understood better in monetary terms. A dollar bill is to a billion dollars, as a nanometer is to a meter. There are 1000 million dollars in a billion, and there are 1000 one thousand dollar bills in a million dollars. Thus a nanometer is 1000x1000x1000 times smaller than a meter, just as a dollar is 1000x1000x1000 smaller than a billio...

Medical malpractice claims are increasing at a rate of about ten percent per year.' Seven chairmen of neurosurgery departments in leading New York hospitals have a combined total of twenty-five malpractice suits filed against them, seeking an aggregate total of $6.3 million. ' In 1960, total malpractice premiums in the United States were $60 million; by 1975, the total will be about $1 billion....