Methodological approaches for cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analysis of injury prevention measures

This guidance on cost–effectiveness and cost–utility analysis of injury prevention measures aims to support countries in the WHO European Region in conducting cost–effectiveness analysis on injury prevention measures using a standardized methodological framework and to make the results of countries’ economic evaluation studies as comparable as possible.

The overall aim of this project is to provide step-wise guidance according to standardized methods to contribute to increasing the evidence base on cost–effectiveness interventions for injury prevention.

This publication provides a simple set of guiding principles for estimating the cost–effectiveness of injury prevention measures. The guidance is practical and presented using a step-by-step approach. Given the data limitations most countries face, the publication identifies a minimum set of data required to produce general estimates of cost–effectiveness.

In some settings, obtaining even the minimum set of data may require creative and innovative solutions. What is the added value of this publication for economic evaluation studies specific to injury prevention measures? This publication links general guidelines on economic evaluation studies to a step-by-step guide for measuring the cost–effectiveness and cost–utility analysis of injury prevention measures in particular.

People with injuries differ from people with other diseases, since the severity varies substantially. Injuries therefore result in a wide array of individual patterns of use of health services and functional outcome. The guidance for estimating the costs and effects of the intervention is therefore particularly based on earlier European projects on injury aimed at developing standardized methods of quantifying costs and disability effects resulting from injuries in Europe: EUROCOST (14), APOLLO (15) and INTEGRIS (16).