title: Cost-effectiveness of Anemia Screening in Vulnerable Groups: A Systematic Review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Anemia is the most common blood disorder observed in vulnerable groups and affects their efficiency in their everyday activities. Possible complications of the disease may be reduced or prevented by screening of patients. Screening programs impose certain costs upon the health system, which may offset their positive effects. Whether the positive impacts of screening outweigh its costs is a subject of debate among policy-makers. In this research, we have conducted a systematic review of the cost-effectiveness of anemia screening.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Pubmed, Science Direct, SCOPUS, EMBASE, and CINAHL databases were searched for relevant results dating between 1962-2010 using key words. The references of the related articles were gone over manually. In the end, Persian databases were also examined for results.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Using data from the four mentioned databases, a total of 722 articles were elected, which, after evaluation, were narrowed down to 4. Of these, 3 focused on newborns and infants. Disparity existed among obtained results, such that no two articles were similar, and this made making comparisons between them cumbersome and sometimes even impossible. Only one study evaluated cost-effectiveness of anemia screening in vulnerable target groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Research findings show that there is not enough evidence of cost-effectiveness of screening for decision-making. Bearing in mind the importance of the matter to health policy-makers, due to high prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia in low- and middle-income countries, conduction of research in this field seems necessary.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Shirin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nosratnejad
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Eshagh
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Barfar
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamed
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hosseini
authors.affiliation: Women's Affairs Office, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Esmat
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Barooti
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Economics, School of Public Health and Knowledge Utilization Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Arash
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rashidian
keywords: Anemia; cost-effectiveness; screening; systematic review
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