Background: Cost-effectiveness evaluation for health care programs often involves the use of quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) estimates to measure morbidity losses from health conditions. Current techniques for measuring morbidity losses are often subjective, inflexible, impractical, and subject to bias.
Objective: We sought to examine the impact of population heterogeneity on QALY values for arthritis sufferers by estimating an alternative health-adjusted life-year (HALY) measure based on self-assessed health status.
Research Design: We present a feasible approach for the assessment of improved QALY estimates for chronic conditions affecting heterogeneous populations. An ordered probit model, using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), is used to calculate expected HALY losses from arthritis for distinct population subgroups. These measures are used to scale existing QALY measures that have been calculated for distinct homogeneous populations.
Results: : We find that QALY losses from chronic arthritis vary by age, time since onset, and type of arthritis. When we apply these results to prevention programs aimed at reducing the incidence of Salmonella enteritidis infections (and the resulting reactive arthritis sequelae), we find that age-invariant QALYs underestimate the true discounted lifetime QALY losses from arthritis by 15%.
Conclusions: Our results indicate that a failure to account for population heterogeneity can lead to biased health loss estimates. The modified HALY measure presented here can be used to help inform policymakers faced with heterogeneous populations.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0b013e3180618bac | DOI Listing |
PLoS Negl Trop Dis
January 2025
Department of Pathology, Center for Global Health and Disease, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America.
Background: WHO recommends two annual rounds of mass drug administration (MDA) with ivermectin, diethylcarbamazine, and albendazole (IDA) for lymphatic filariasis (LF) elimination in treatment naïve areas that are not co-endemic for onchocerciasis such as Papua New Guinea (PNG). Whether two rounds of MDA are necessary or sufficient and the optimal sampling strategies and endpoints for stopping MDA remain undefined.
Methods And Findings: Two cross-sectional studies were conducted at baseline (N = 49 clusters or villages) and 12 months after mass drug administration (MDA) with IDA (N = 47 villages) to assess lymphatic filariasis (LF) by circulating filarial antigenemia (CFA) and microfilariae (Mf).
PLoS One
January 2025
School of Social Research, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.
The reform of rural collective property rights system is of great significance for protecting the collective asset rights and interests of villagers, activating rural resource elements, and achieving rural revitalization. This study is based on 284 village committee questionnaires and 7451 villager questionnaires from 10 provinces in China, and uses multi-layer linear regression models to explore the impact of the reform of rural collective property rights system on villagers' public participation. Research has found that:(1) the reform of rural collective property rights system that has been completed at the rural level can significantly enhance the public participation of villagers, including total participation (β = 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlzheimers Dement
January 2025
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA.
Introduction: The association between adult child educational attainment and older parent's cognitive health may vary across diverse contexts but cross-national comparisons have been limited by differences in outcome assessment, study design, and analytic choices.
Methods: We used harmonized data with comprehensive cognitive assessments from the United States (N = 3088), India (N = 3828), and Mexico (N = 1875) to estimate associations between adult child education and older adults' cognitive functioning using linear regression models adjusted for respondent and family-level socio-economic status (SES) in each study.
Results: Each additional year of offspring education was associated with 0.
J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci
January 2025
Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer's Research Center, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.
Objectives: The oldest old adults (90+) constitute the fastest growing demographic at highest dementia risk among older adults. Depression, a common risk factor, inherently presents with heterogeneous clinical manifestations. Here, we explored the associations of the predominant depression dimensions with cognition in the LifeAfter90 study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCochrane Database Syst Rev
January 2025
Liverpool Reviews and Implementation Group, Department of Health Data Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Rationale: Postpartum haemorrhage, defined as a blood loss of 500 mL or more within 24 hours of birth, is the leading global cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. Uterine fibroids are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the uterus, and affect an increasing number of women. Caesarean myomectomy is the surgical removal of fibroids during a caesarean section.
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