title: The tension between cost-utility analysis and preventive public health.
abstract: Public health programs must often work under severe budgetary constraints. It would appear then that cost-utility analysis could offer decision-makers a practical approach to prioritizing public health interventions. Unfortunately, cost-utility analysis is a poor tool for programmatic decision-making in public health because it systematically downgrades interventions aimed at prevention, and because it is not designed to help guide multi-dimensional, multi-input community public health programs. Thus, a different kind of prioritization framework is needed, one that is better aligned with community action and the preventive aims of public health.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioethics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, USA.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hyun
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis; D006801:Humans; D011314:Preventive Health Services / Q000191:economics*; D011634:Public Health