Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by COHEN, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by COHEN, D.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Health Promotion International, Vol. 9, No. 4, 281-287, 1994
© Oxford University Press 1994

other

Health promotion and cost-effectiveness

DAVID COHEN

Business School, University of Glamorgan Pontypridd, UK

Address for correspondence: Address for correspondence: David Cohen Business School University of Glamorgan Pontypridd Mid Glamorgan CF37 1DL UK

Successful health promotion may save resources but this is not its main objective. Health promotion programmes which cost more than they save may still be an economically efficient way of reducing premature death and improving quality of life. The principles of health economics emphasise how scarcity makes resource allocation choices inescapable. They highlight the fact that the benefits from health promotion are achieved at the sacrifice of potentially achievable benefits elsewhere. The thinking of economics and the techniques of economic appraisal can help to show how more efficient choices between health promotion and other health producing interventions, as well as choices within health promotion, can be made. One major problem with applying economic appraisal to health promotion is the way in which the technique reduces the value of future benefits to account for the lower value which society appears to place on future versus current benefits (and costs). Emphasising the peace-of-mind benefits of health promotion, which arise immediately as a result of the knowledge that risks are reduced, is one way of partly overcoming the accusation that economic appraisals discriminate against health promotion in favour of treatment and cure. A plea is made for greater use of economics in health promotion.

Key words: discounting; economic appraisal; economics


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 HEALTH PROMOT INTHome page
J. Hale
What contribution can health economics make to health promotion?
Health Promot. Int., December 1, 2000; 15(4): 341 - 348.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Scand J Public HealthHome page
L. A. Lindholm, M. E. Rosen, and M. E. Stenbeck
Determinants of willingness to pay taxes for a community-based prevention programme
Scand J Public Health, June 1, 1997; 25(2): 126 - 135.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 Health Education JournalHome page
D. Reid
How effective is health education via mass communications?
Health Education Journal, January 1, 1996; 55(3): 332 - 344.
[PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.