The economic evaluation of a health screening program on congenital heart disease for school children in Taichung, Taiwan.

Objective: The objective of this study was the economic evaluation of screening school children for congenital heart disease (CHD).

Methods: The sample consisted of all the 45,725 students in grades 1 and 7 from Taichung County, Taiwan. STATISTICA, version 7.1, was used to determine descriptive statistics and Student's t tests on students' height, weight, and body mass index (BMI).

Results: The total cost of CHD screening was NT$4,863,866 (NT$32 = US$1), and the average cost was NT$106.37 per child. The rate of finding new asymptomatic students was 2.9174%, and the cost of finding 1 asymptomatic student was NT$3646. Also, a cost-effective analysis showed NT$165.7 per year of life saved.

Conclusions: Twelve Student's t tests were conducted, and it found that students' height, weight, and BMI was not associated with asymptomatic students. A goodness-of-fit chi(2) found that females have a higher rate of asymptomatic CHD.