title: Proposal for the development of a standardized protocol for assessing the economic costs of HIV prevention interventions.
abstract: Maximizing our economic investment in HIV prevention requires balancing the costs of candidate interventions against their effects and selecting the most cost-effective interventions for implementation. However, many HIV prevention intervention trials do not collect cost information, and those that do use a variety of cost data collection methods and analysis techniques. Standardized cost data collection procedures, instrumentation, and analysis techniques are needed to facilitate the task of assessing intervention costs and to ensure comparability across intervention trials. This article describes the basic elements of a standardized cost data collection and analysis protocol and outlines a computer-based approach to implementing this protocol. Ultimately, the development of such a protocol would require contributions and "buy-in" from a diverse range of stakeholders, including HIV prevention researchers, cost-effectiveness analysts, community collaborators, public health decision makers, and funding agencies.
authors.affiliation: Center for AIDS Intervention Research, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI 53202, USA. pinkrton@mcw.edu
authors.forename: Steven D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Pinkerton
authors.forename: Cynthia R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Pearson
authors.forename: Susan R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Eachus
authors.forename: Karina M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Berg
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Grimes
mesh_terms: D003140:Communicable Disease Control / Q000191:economics*; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis / Q000592:standards*; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans