Cost effectiveness analysis of hypertension screening conducted by public health officers versus village health volunteers in Mae Fa Laung district, Chiang Rai province in 2011-2012

Abstract

This study focuses on the cost and effectiveness analysis of hypertension screening conducted by public health officers versus by village heath volunteers in Mae Fah Luang District, Chiang Rai Province in 2011-2012. Only provider perspective has been included in this study. To obtain the cost of each program, activity-based costing method has been employed. However, we focus on two kinds of effectiveness measures including: (i) number of people screened and (ii) number of people with correct detection of hypertension. Delphi technique has been employed to estimate the probability of correct detection. The total cost from provider perspective indicates that hypertension screening conducted by public health officers in 2011 was 63,988.90 Baht and the number of people who were screened is equal to 1,048. So the cost effectiveness ratio comes up to be 61.05 Baht / person. In addition, the number of people with correct detection of hypertension was equal to 891, which implies that the monetary cost is 71.83 Baht / one case detect correctly. However, the total cost of hypertension screening conducted by village health volunteers in 2012 was 89,852.70 Baht and 1,106 of people were screened. Thus, the cost effectiveness ratio is equal to 81.24 Bath/person in 2012. For the performance of village health volunteers on the correctly detecting hypertension, we estimate from Delphi technique that 619 people were correctly detected. Thus 145.07 Baht is needed in order to pay for one case to correct detection of hypertension in 2012. As a result, this study can conclude that hypertension screening conducted by public health officers is more cost effective than when it was conducted by village heath volunteers.