title: Economics and preventing hospital-acquired infection.
abstract: The economics of preventing hospital-acquired infections is most often described in general terms. The underlying concepts and mechanisms are rarely made explicit but should be understood for research and policy-making. We define the key economic concepts and specify an illustrative model that uses hypothetical data to identify how two related questions might be addressed: 1) how much should be invested for infection control, and 2) what are the most appropriate infection-control programs? We aim to make explicit the economics of preventing hospital-acquired infections.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Health Research-Public Health (CHR-PH), Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Brisbane, Australia. n.graves@qut.edu.au
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Graves
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D003428:Cross Infection / Q000191:economics* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans