Incremental Health Care Costs Associated With Food Insecurity and Chronic Conditions Among Older Adults.

Introduction: The prevalence of food insecurity and chronic health conditions among older adults is a public health concern. However, little is known about associated health care costs. We estimated the incremental health care costs of food insecurity and selected chronic health conditions among older adults, defined as adults aged 50 or older.

Clinical-Community Partnerships to Identify Patients With Food Insecurity and Address Food Needs.

Introduction: More than 42 million people in the United States are food insecure. Although some health care entities are addressing food insecurity among patients because of associations with disease risk and management, little is known about the components of these initiatives.

Methods: The Systematic Screening and Assessment Method was used to conduct a landscape assessment of US health care entity-based programs that screen patients for food insecurity and connect them with food resources.

Community-Based Interventions to Decrease Obesity and Tobacco Exposure and Reduce Health Care Costs: Outcome Estimates From Communities Putting Prevention to Work for 2010-2020.

Introduction: In 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) launched Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW), a $485 million program to reduce obesity, tobacco use, and exposure to secondhand smoke. CPPW awardees implemented evidence-based policy, systems, and environmental changes to sustain reductions in chronic disease risk factors. This article describes short-term and potential long-term benefits of the CPPW investment.

Coverage and preventive screening.

Context: Preventive care has been shown as a high-value health care service. Many employers now offer expanded coverage of preventive care to encourage utilization.

Objective: To determine whether expanding coverage is an effective means to encourage utilization.

Factors associated with differences in mortality and self-reported health across states in the United States.

Objective: Recent studies indicate continuing health disparities across geographic units in the US. This paper provides updated estimates of the association between socioeconomic factors and population health using a new state-level dataset and panel econometric methods that account for state-specific effects and autoregressive error structure.

Methods: Data from multiple sources for the 50 US states and the District of Columbia are merged.

Monitoring progress toward CDC's health protection goals: health outcome measures by life stage.

Objectives: From 2004 through 2005, as part of a major strategic planning process called the Futures Initiative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a set of Health Protection Goals to make the best use of agency resources to achieve health impact. These goals were framed in terms of people, places, preparedness, and global health. This article presents a goals framework and a set of health outcome measures with historical trends and forecasts to track progress toward the Healthy People goals by life stage (Infants and Toddlers, Children, Adolescents, Adults, and Older Adults and Seniors).

National mass drug administration costs for lymphatic filariasis elimination.

Background: Because lymphatic filariasis (LF) elimination efforts are hampered by a dearth of economic information about the cost of mass drug administration (MDA) programs (using either albendazole with diethylcarbamazine [DEC] or albendazole with ivermectin), a multicenter study was undertaken to determine the costs of MDA programs to interrupt transmission of infection with LF. Such results are particularly important because LF programs have the necessary diagnostic and treatment tools to eliminate the disease as a public health problem globally, and already by 2006, the Global Programme to Eliminate LF had initiated treatment programs covering over 400 million of the 1.3 billion people at risk.

Lessons from cost-effectiveness research for United States public health policy.

The application of cost-effectiveness analysis to health care has been the subject of previous reviews. We address the use of economic evaluation methods in public health, including case studies of population-level policies, e.g.

The Leogane, Haiti demonstration project: decreased microfilaremia and program costs after three years of mass drug administration.

To support the global program to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF), well-monitored demonstration projects are important for defining the relationship between coverage and reductions in microfilaremia. We are using mass treatment with diethylcarbamazine (DEC) and albendazole in an effort to eliminate LF from Leogane, Haiti. Wuchereria bancrofti microfilaremia prevalence at baseline ranged from 0.

Cost-effectiveness of universal screening for chlamydia and gonorrhea in US jails.

Universal screening for the sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) of chlamydia and gonorrhea on intake in jails has been proposed as the most effective strategy to decrease morbidity in inmates and to reduce transmission risk in communities after release. Most inmates come from a population that is at elevated risk for STDs and has limited access to health care. However, limited resources and competing priorities force decision makers to consider the cost of screening programs in comparison to other needs.

Willingness to pay for prevention and treatment of lymphatic filariasis in Leogane, Haiti.

BACKGROUND: Lymphatic filariasis (LF) affects more than 120 million people worldwide. Efforts to eliminate this disease require sustained community participation. This study explores community valuation of LF elimination efforts by estimating household and community willingness to pay (WTP) for the prevention of transmission and treatment of filarial lymphedema in the community of Leogane, Haiti.

Cost of illness in the 1993 waterborne Cryptosporidium outbreak, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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. The total cost of outbreak-associated illness was 96.2 million US dollars: 31.

A cost-effectiveness evaluation of testing and treatment of Chlamydia trachomatis infection among asymptomatic women infected with Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

Background: Because patients infected with Neisseria gonorrhoeae are frequently coinfected with Chlamydia trachomatis, routine dual treatment of patients with N gonorrhoeae infection is frequently practiced and has long been recommended.

Goal: The goal of this study was to examine the cost-effectiveness of routine dual treatment of women with infection, with or without separate testing for C trachomatis, compared with an alternative of testing for both infections and restricting treatment for C trachomatis to women testing positive for C trachomatis.

Study Design: A decision analysis compared the cost-effectiveness of these options using cases of pelvic inflammatory disease prevented as the outcome.