Vaccination has led to remarkable health gains over the last century. However, large coverage gaps remain, which will require significant financial resources and political will to address. In recent years, a compelling line of inquiry has established the economic benefits of health, at both the individual and aggregate levels. Most existing economic evaluations of particular health interventions fail to account for this new research, leading to potentially sizable undervaluation of those interventions. In line with this new research, we set forth a framework for conceptualizing the full benefits of vaccination, including avoided medical care costs, outcome-related productivity gains, behavior-related productivity gains, community health externalities, community economic externalities, and the value of risk reduction and pure health gains. We also review literature highlighting the magnitude of these sources of benefit for different vaccinations. Finally, we outline the steps that need to be taken to implement a broad-approach economic evaluation and discuss the implications of this work for research, policy, and resource allocation for vaccine development and delivery.benefit-cost analysis | immunization

BackgroundPneumococcal disease causes substantial morbidity and mortality, including among adults. Adult pneumococcal vaccines help to prevent these burdens, but they are underused. Accounting for the full benefits of adult pneumococcal vaccination may promote more rational resource allocation decisions with respect to adult pneumococcal vaccines.ObjectivesUsing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we conducted a systematic review to assess the extent to which the literature has empirically captured (e.g., through measurement or modeling) the full benefits of adult pneumococcal vaccination.MethodsWe systematically searched PubMed and Embase to identify studies published between January 1, 2010 and April 10, 2016 that examine adult pneumococcal vaccination. We included articles if they captured any health or economic benefit of an adult pneumococcal vaccine administered to adults age ≥ 50 or ≥ 18 in risk groups. Finally, we summarized the literature by categorizing the types of benefits captured, the perspective taken, and the strength of the evidence presented. Our protocol is number 42016038335 in the PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews.ResultsWe identified 5,857 papers and included 150 studies for analysis. While most capture health gains and healthcare cost savings, far fewer studies consider additional benefit categories, such as productivity gains. However, the studies with a broader approach still exhibit significant limitations; for example, many present only abstracts, while others offer no new measurements. Studies that examine the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine focus more on broad economic benefits, but still have limitations.ConclusionsThis review highlights the need for more robust empirical accounting of the full benefits of adult pneumococcal vaccination. Literature outside this realm indicates that these broad benefits may be substantial. Failing to investigate the full benefits may lead society to undervalue vaccines' contributions and therefore underinvest in their development and adoption.

BackgroundPriority setting in a climate of diverse needs and limited resources is one of the most significant challenges faced by health care policymakers. This paper develops and applies a comprehensive multi-criteria algorithm to help determine the relative importance of health conditions that affect a defined population.MethodsOur algorithm is implemented in the context of the Waikato District Health Board (WDHB) in New Zealand, which serves approximately 10% of the New Zealand population. Strategic priorities of the WDHB are operationalized into five criteria along which the algorithm is structured—scale of disease, household financial impact of disease, health equity, cost-effectiveness, and multimorbidity burden. Using national-level data and published literature from New Zealand, the World Health Organization, and other high-income Commonwealth countries, 25 health conditions in Waikato are identified and mapped to these five criteria. These disease-criteria mappings are weighted with data from an ordered choice survey administered to the general public of the Waikato region. The resulting output of health conditions ranked in order of relative importance is validated against an explicit list of health concerns, provided by the survey respondents.ResultsHeart disease and cancerous disorders are assigned highest priority rankings according to both the algorithm and the survey data, suggesting that our model is aligned with the primary health concerns of the general public. All five criteria are weighted near-equal across survey respondents, though the average health equity preference score is 9.2% higher for Māori compared to non-Māori respondents. Older respondents (50 years and above) ranked issues of multimorbidity 4.2% higher than younger respondents.ConclusionsHealth preferences of the general population can be elicited using ordered-choice surveys and can be used to weight data for health conditions across multiple criteria, providing policymakers with a practical tool to inform which health conditions deserve the most attention. Our model connects public health strategic priorities, the health impacts and financial costs of particular health conditions, and the underlying preferences of the general public. We illustrate a practical approach to quantifying the foundational criteria that drive public preferences, for the purpose of relevant, legitimate, and evidence-based priority setting in health.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12962-018-0121-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background: Reducing hospital readmission after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has the potential to both improve quality and reduce costs. As such, readmission after AMI has been a target of financial penalties through Medicare. However, substantial concern exists about potential adverse effects and efficacious readmission-reduction strategies are not well validated. Methods and Results: We started an AMI readmissions reduction program in November 2017. Between July 2016 and February 2019, hospital billing data were queried to detect all inpatient hospitalizations at the Massachusetts General Hospital for AMI. Thirty-day readmission was identified through hospital billing data, and mortality was extracted from our electronic health record. The data set was merged with claims data for patients in accountable care organizations to detect readmission at other hospitals. We performed segmented linear regression, adjusting for secular trend and case mix, to assess the independent association of our program on both outcome variables. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, the study population included 2020 patients. The overall 30-day readmission rate was higher before the intervention than after the intervention (15.5% versus 10.7%, P =0.002). The overall 30-day mortality rate was similar in both time periods (1.8% versus 1.4%, P =0.457). The program was associated with initial reduction in 30-day readmission (−9.8%, P =0.0002) and 30-day mortality (−2.6%, P =0.041). The program did not change trend in 30-day readmission (+0.19% readmissions/mo, P =0.554) and trend in 30-day mortality (−0.21% deaths/mo, P =0.119). Conclusions: An AMI readmissions reduction program that increases outpatient and emergency department (ED) access to cardiology care is associated with reduced 30-day readmission and 30-day mortality. Similar statistical techniques can be used to conduct a rigorous, mechanistic program evaluation of other quality improvement initiatives.