Advances and Methods to Conduct Cost-Effectiveness Analysis for Health Communication

This is an end-of-project meeting presentation by the Health Communication Partnership (HCP) (2002-2007), a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded project run by the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Communication Programs, to ascertain how maximum benefits can be attained from health communication interventions aimed at behaviour change. Two questions are posed in this regard. First, “how can we make sure that we are getting the most behavior change for our program dollars”? The second question specifically attempts to find out if the mix of different communication sub-interventions can be altered to achieve greater gains.

The presentation does a cost effectiveness analysis which evaluates health gains (in a common unit) relative to other costs. In doing this, the cost-effectiveness analysis is operationalised as a method that evaluates health gains relative to their costs. It asserts that the cost-effectiveness analysis does exactly what it says it does: determine effectiveness; determine costs; and then bring those together. On the effectiveness side, a number of issues have been identified and need to be addressed, these are:

• Having measurable, valid, and quantifiable outcomes
• Choosing an appropriate perspective - either programmatic or societal
• Determining the length of time under which to measure costs and effects
• Determining how sensitive results are to the assumptions made.

Most importantly, for health communication interventions, using appropriate research designs and evaluation methods is crucial, so that any observed behaviour change can be attributed to programmes. On the cost side, there is nothing inherently different about determining the costs of a health communication intervention than there is about determining the costs of any other health intervention.

A literature review was conducted to see just how pervasive the analysis of the cost-effectiveness of health communication interventions is. After an empirical analysis, the results indicated that though it is possible to analyse the cost-effectiveness of health communication interventions, it is not generally done. Available evidence from HCP studies also indicates that effective programmes also tend to be cost-effective.

This presentation is no longer available online. Please contact Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (CCP) (below) for further information.