Cost-effective primary care-based strategies to improve smoking cessation: more value for money.

Background: Evidence from cost-effective smoking cessation programs is scarce. This study determined the cost-effectiveness of 3 smoking cessation strategies as provided by general practitioners (GPs) in Germany.

Methods: In a cluster-randomized smoking cessation trial, rates and intervention costs for 577 smoking patients of 82 GPs were followed up for 12 months.

[Expenditures for members of a health insurance company suffering from alcoholism - a payer's view].

Aim: In this study, expenditures of a health insurance company for alcoholics are calculated and analysed.

Method: Data are derived from the company's records. To participate in this study, subjects had to have a clearly alcohol-related diagnosis during a stay in hospital or a time-off work in 2001 (index-year).