Discussion

In this week's lecture,  we discussed the study  "Five-Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and Their Cost-Effectiveness", linkDownload Wk4_Tengs.pdf. I mentioned that the cost-effectiveness of childhood immunizations is less than zero, which means these interventions actually save money when saving lives (i.e., cost-effectiveness <=$0, or net savings).  Of course, the R&D and the production of vaccines are costly. The reason why childhood immunizations create net savings is because they prevent diseases from happening in the future as children grow up. 

Your assignment for this week is this. Please answer both part 1 and part 2. 

Part 1:  On page 378-384 of this study, you will see the cost-effectiveness of a long list of medical interventions (i.e., in the "Medicine" category).

Step 1.1: Please choose one other medical interventions in this list (other than "childhood immunizations") of which cost-effectiveness is "<=$0". 

Step 1.2: Search online and learn the basics about this intervention. Then,  introduce this intervention to your group.  (Please use no more than five sentences when describing the intervention. ) 

Step 1.3: Explain why you think the cost-effectiveness of the intervention you picked is <=$0, i.e., it creates net savings. 

Part 2: In Section 4 (page 371-372), the authors discussed four limitations of their study. Choose one limitation and discuss whether you agree with it and why.