An economic evaluation of mandatory premarital testing for HIV.

This study provides a comprehensive assessment of mandatory premarital testing for HIV. We incorporate new evidence about the assumptions underlying an economic evaluation of premarital testing, use standard methods of program evaluation (cost-effectiveness analysis and cost-benefit analysis), and carefully evaluate how changes in the various assumptions affect the results. The cost-effectiveness results show that, under the most likely conditions, the cost per case of HIV infection prevented by mandatory premarital testing would be between $70,000 and $127,000. In the cost-benefit analysis, the benefit-cost ratio in the most likely scenarios ranges between 3.1 and 28.2.