Wang Li Yan, Burstein Gale R, Cohen Deborah A
Division of Adolescent and School Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Sex Transm Dis. 2002 Dec;29(12):737-45. doi: 10.1097/00007435-200212000-00001.
A school-based sexually transmitted disease (STD) screening program was implemented in eight New Orleans public high schools to detect chlamydia and gonorrhea.
The goal was to assess the incremental cost-effectiveness of replacing non-school-based screening with the school-based screening program.
A decision-analysis model was constructed to compare costs and cases of expected pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) in the school-based screening scenario versus a non-school-based screening scenario. Cost-effectiveness was quantified and measured as cost per case of PID prevented.
Under base-case assumptions, at an intervention cost of $86,449, the school screening program prevented an estimated 38 cases of PID, as well as $119,866 in treatment costs for PID and its sequelae, resulting in savings of $1524 per case of PID prevented. Results remained cost-saving over a reasonable range of model parameter estimates.
The New Orleans school-based chlamydia screening program was cost-effective and cost-saving and could be cost-effective in other settings. School-based screening programs of this type are likely to be a cost-effective use of public funds and can reduce the burden of STDs among adolescents.
