Economic evaluation of the Communicating Healthy Beginnings Advice by Telephone trial for early childhood obesity prevention

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to conduct an economic evaluation of the Communicating Healthy Beginnings Advice by Telephone (CHAT) trial to prevent childhood obesity.Methods: Cost-effectiveness analyses were conducted for the telephone and short message service (SMS) delivery of Healthy Beginnings advice, compared with usual care, which included child health services unrelated to Healthy Beginnings. Costs were valued in 2018 Australian dollars, and costs and outcomes were discounted at 5% per year. The costs of upscaling both delivery modes to all yearly births in New South Wales, Australia, were estimated and compared with the original Healthy Beginnings home-visiting intervention.Results: At child age 2 years, the SMS delivery was more cost-effective

A systematic review of economic evaluations of interventions targeting childhood overweight and obesity

“…192 Rates of 3% were typical in the United States and Australia, but the most recent studies in Australia applied a 5% discount rate to costs and benefits. [48][49][50]177 Across all studies, discount rates did not exceed 5%. Many studies with follow-up periods or time horizons exceeding 1 year did not report discount rates, and no justification was provided for their omission.…”

“…60,61,67,75,76,106,107,109,111,112,167 The economic evaluation of e-health interventions ("the use of information and communications technology in support of health and health-related fields" 184 ) and interventions with m-health (a subset of ehealth based on mobile wireless technologies 185 ) components at their core emerged only within the past 5 years. 47,48,79,113,114,133,142,171,177 The costing of these interventions reveals contemporary complexities attended by the omission of associated resource use and costs. One study excluded costs relating to research and development of a multicomponent m-health intervention, 133 while another study reported difficulties obtaining similar costs.…”

“…An Australian study explored separate cost-effectiveness threshold ranges of AUD 0-30,000 per unit BMI avoided and AUD 0-3,000 per 0.1 reduction in BMI z score, 39 while another applied a threshold of AUD 1,000 per 0.1 BMI z score. 48 A threshold range of AUD 0-45 per unit reduction in lunchbox energy from discretionary foods was considered in one Australian study. 133 A Swedish study explored a costeffectiveness threshold range spanning EUR 0-10,000 per BMI unit prevented.…”

“…30,42 Two studies were m-health-based: one involved deploying a multicomponent smartphone app intervention among 13-year-olds in a school setting, 47 and the other compared the use of telephone or short message service (SMS) to contact mothers of infants. 48 All comparators were usual care or no intervention, except for one study that compared lower protein with higher protein content formula. 42 All prevention-only interventions were conducted among baseline populations of pregnant women and newborn babies or children within the first 5 years of life, except for two studies, which targeted populations of 13-and 16-year-olds.…”

“…42 All prevention-only interventions were conducted among baseline populations of pregnant women and newborn babies or children within the first 5 years of life, except for two studies, which targeted populations of 13-and 16-year-olds. 41,48 One study focused on children in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. 39 One study undertook subgroup analysis for white and South Asian subpopulations.…”