Community Dental Health

cover art

Cover Date:
March 2018
Print ISSN:
0265 539X
Electronic ISSN:
2515-1746
Vol:
35
Issue:
1

The use of cost-utility analysis for the evaluation of caries prevention: an exploratory case study of two community-based public health interventions in a high-risk population in the UK

Background: Economic evaluations are important tools for decision makers to determine the best allocation of resources in a healthcare system. This study explored the use of economic evaluation in oral health promotion. Methods: A literature review identified oral health promotion programmes that measured both the health impact and costs of oral health interventions. A decision analysis model was constructed to examine the cost utility of preventing dental caries in 5 and 12-year-old children via tooth brushing schemes and fluoride varnish programmes. The costs per child that would be justified according to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s threshold of £20,000 per
QALY were calculated. Results: The analysis showed that NICE would consider that the expenditure of £55 per child on supervised tooth brushing, or £100 per child on fluoride varnish application would give sufficient health benefits to be justified according to their threshold. Conclusions: Greater attention needs to be paid to the collection of robust data on costs for oral health promotion. Dental researchers also urgently need to collect outcome data in a form that can be translated into a Quality of Life measure, so that the true cost effectiveness and value for money achieved through the prevention of dental disease can be recognised and compared to other allocations of resource.

Key words: Caries, dental health attitudes, community based study, prevention, analysis, economics

10.1922/CDH_4115Owen07

Article Price
£15.00
Institution Article Price
£
Page Start
30
Page End
36
Authors
Elizabeth Kay, Lesley Owen, Matthew Taylor, Lindsay Claxton, Linda Sheppard

Articles from this issue

  • Title
  • Pg. Start
  • Pg. End

  1. Editorial - Logos, Ethos and Pathos: Whither academia and public health in a post-truth world?
  2. 3
  3. 4

  1. Review and action plan for oral health improvement in Sheffield special schools
  2. 5
  3. 8

  1. Impact of stress on dentists’ clinical performance. A systematic review
  2. 9
  3. 15

  1. Illness perceptions amongst individuals with dental caries
  2. 16
  3. 22

  1. The relationship between depression and periodontal diseases
  2. 23
  3. 29

  1. The use of cost-utility analysis for the evaluation of caries prevention: an exploratory case study of two community-based public health interventions in a high-risk population in the UK
  2. 30
  3. 36

  1. A systematic review of interventions using cue-automaticity to improve the uptake of preventive healthcare in adults: applications to dental visiting
  2. 37
  3. 46

  1. Turkish Adaptation of Dentine Hypersensitivity ExperienceQuestionnaire (DHEQ)
  2. 47
  3. 51

  1. Recall intervals and time used for examination and prevention by dentists in child dental care in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in 1996 and 2014
  2. 52
  3. 57

  1. Obesity and dental caries in young children in Plymouth,United Kingdom: A Spatial Analysis
  2. 58
  3. 64