Sound Decisions Rely on Evidence: International Seminar on Health Priorities to Feature Cost-Effectiveness Tools

April 11, 2007

For Release: 11 April 2007

Sound Decisions Rely on Evidence:
International Seminar on Health Priorities to Feature Cost Effectiveness Tools

Although the health of Chileans improved consistently and dramatically over the past century, noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, are rapidly increasing in the country and throughout the Southern Cone. Chile recently undertook an ambitious health reform initiative. Plan AUGE is a significant part of this initiative to improve access to health services, increase efficiency of healthcare spending, and guarantee its citizens a larger package of essential healthcare services concentrated on chronic diseases. This program is a part of the efforts to meet Chile’s Health Objectives for 2010. It required innovative thinking about coverage and costs, particularly because the specification of the health interventions and the cost-effectiveness estimates were conducted under a budget ceiling that allowed only gradual expansion of what interventions would be covered.

Other countries can learn from this experience. On 10-11 April, experts from Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Uruguay will gather to discuss health priority-setting and financing of priority interventions. This seminar is hosted by the Ministry of Health of Chile and co-organized by the Pan-American Health Organization, and the World Bank. This seminar is part of the dissemination program by the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCPP) for the second edition of Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (DCP2), a seminal body of literature in the health sector which was launched in April 2006. DCP2 consists of evidence-based analysis and resources to inform health policymaking in developing countries. It also highlights cost-effective interventions based on careful analysis of health systems and the costs of disease burden, treatment, and prevention for a comprehensive range of diseases and conditions. Chile and other countries can use this information to help set priorities in health among competing issues, and to meet the goals they have already set.

This seminar is also a part of the World Bank’s efforts to assist countries to create and implement better health projects.

DCPP offers evidence about “best health buys,”—those health interventions that offer the most health for the least amount of money—of particular importance to the poorest countries. But experts at the seminar will go well beyond the simplest messages to explore how cost-effective analysis can be used in flexible ways and be adapted to the context of participating countries. DCPP editor, Philip Musgrove states, “Governments have always set priorities in health; cost-effectiveness analysis helps them do that with their eyes open.”

The DCPP books and their companion website (www.dcp2.org) are designed specifically as resources for policymakers, health program managers, and donors. Priorities in Health is a companion volume available in seven languages, including Spanish, that synthesizes the project’s main messages into a reference guide for policymakers. And Global Burden of Disease and Risk Factors provides a snapshot of the health conditions of mankind at the dawn of the 21st century.

Together, these books give developing countries the latest tools and evidence for allocating their health resources wisely, making the best policy choices, and effectively implementing new or refined health programs and practices. In a world where only 12 percent of global health spending occurs in low- and middle-income countries—which account for 92 percent of the global burden of disease—these volumes are an invaluable contribution toward worldwide well-being.

DCPP is a collaborative effort of the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Population Reference Bureau and is supported by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Through collaboration with the National Library of Medicine of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, full book content is accessible electronically on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s Bookshelf website. For more information on the books or the project, visit our website at www.dcp2.org.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

This press release was prepared by the Population Reference Bureau.