Assessing the effectiveness of disease and injury prevention programs: costs and consequences.

Because resources are finite, public health decision makers need to consider the costs and effectiveness of alternative prevention strategies. A simplified approach to performing marginal cost-effectiveness analyses requires a) a description of the program, b) a description of the health outcomes averted and the timing of those events, c) the rates of the health outcome, d) the preventable fraction of the health outcomes averted, e) the costs per unit of the intervention, and f) the direct medical costs of the health outcome prevented and the side effects incurred. With this information, the marginal cost-effectiveness of an intervention can be determined and applied for decision making.