University faculty often express frustration with the accuracy of students' understanding of science in general and of evolution in particular. A rich research literature suggests that inquiry-based pedagogies are more effective in producing meaningful learning than are traditional, didactic approaches. A pragmatic investigation into the efficacy of inquiry-based curricular reforms ...

Technology appears to be making fine-scale charging (as in tolls on roads that depend on time of day or even on current and anticipated levels of congestion) increasingly feasible. Such charging also appears to be increasingly desirable, as traffic on roads continues to grow and costs and public opposition limit ...

BACKGROUND: Treatments for post-vasectomy obstructive azoospermia include vasectomy reversal, microsurgical epididymal sperm aspiration (MESA) or percutaneous testicular sperm extraction (TESE) with IVF/ICSI. We examined the cost-effectiveness of these treatments. METHODS: A decision analytic model was created to simulate treatment. Outcome probabilities were derived from peer-reviewed literature and the Society for ...

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the relative cost-effectiveness of different secondary prevention cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program designs or how cost-effectiveness is influenced by patient clinical and demographic characteristics. The purpose of the study was (i) to evaluate the incremental cost-effectiveness of a standard 3-month CR program (SCR) versus a program ...

OBJECTIVE: To estimate and analyse the costs for providing the expanded programme on immunization (EPI) in a rural community in the north of Viet Nam in 2005. METHODS: An ingredient approach was used to collect cost data from the perspective of the service providers. FINDINGS: The total annual cost of ...

A prospective, observational study of 1289 members completing an evidence-based diabetes management program was evaluated for clinical effectiveness and cost impact. The program consisted of direct contacts by nurse educators who worked with members to complete modules in a specific order based on the individual's readiness to change and specific ...

BACKGROUND: Colonoscopy has become accepted as one of the most effective methods of screening patients for colorectal cancer, and is used to remove the majority of colonic adenomas. OBJECTIVE: Because of the paucity of such estimates in the literature and the significant number of candidates for this procedure, the present ...

BACKGROUND: Schema-focused therapy (SFT) and transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) for borderline personality disorder were recently compared in a randomised multicentre trial. AIMS: To assess the societal cost-effectiveness of SFT v. TFP in treating borderline personality disorder. METHOD: Costs were assessed by interview. Health-related quality of life was measured using EQ-5D. Outcomes ...

AIM: To estimate the cost of pneumonia and pleurisy in lambs to the sheep industry in New Zealand, in order to provide a reference for future cost-benefit calculations for control programmes to reduce the incidence of pneumonia. METHODS: An estimate of the economic cost of pneumonia and pleurisy in lambs ...

The rising cost of drug therapy has been accompanied by demands from payers for pharmacoeconomic studies to assess the value for money of new treatments. There are 5 types of such analyses: cost analysis (evaluates only costs); cost minimization (compares costs of treatments with identical outcomes); cost-effectiveness (evaluates the cost ...

OBJECTIVES: To estimate a hybrid cost function of the relationship between total annual cost for outpatient methadone treatment and output (annual patient days and selected services), input prices (wages and building space costs), and selected program and patient case-mix characteristics. DATA SOURCES: Data are from a multistate study of 159 ...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the operational cost of a urology unit, individual cost for certain index operations in urology, and to develop a framework to audit finances of a unit. DESIGN: A financial audit. SETTING: Urology unit in a teaching hospital. METHODS: Data of cost in providing urology services during one ...

OBJECTIVES: Our main objective was to compare willingness to accept (WTA) and willingness to pay (WTP) in a discrete choice experiment on hearing aid provision. Additionally, income effect and endowment effect were explored as possible explanations for the disparity between WTA and WTP, and the impact of using a WTA ...

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) has a high incidence and involves an important consumption of healthcare resources. The present authors analysed the influence of comorbidity, initial severity and complications upon the direct costs associated with hospitalised CAP patients. Direct hospitalisation costs (room cost, treatment, laboratory and diagnostic tests) were assessed in a ...

OBJECTIVE: The SunWise School Program is a school-based sun safety education program that was developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency and aims to teach children how to protect themselves from overexposure to the sun. The objectives of this study were to assess the health benefits of the SunWise School ...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was (1) to estimate the direct medical costs of 7 major noncervical human papillomavirus (HPV)-related conditions that include genital cancers, mouth and oropharyngeal cancers, anogenital warts, and juvenile-onset recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, and (2) to approximate the economic burden of noncervical HPV disease. STUDY DESIGN: ...

Fortitude Valley, in Brisbane City, Australia is an inner city area combining retail, commercial, residential, and entertainment uses. It has been the starting point for several major Australian bands. To address the increase in apartments in the Valley, the Brisbane City Council has developed a noise policy (called The Valley ...

Chronic hepatitis B constitutes a significant health and economic burden to Asian countries. Six medications are now approved for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, but there is still significant uncertainty with regards to treatment outcomes, cost impact, and benefits in view of the absence of long-term outcomes data. Cost-effectiveness ...

CONTEXT: Medicare Part D drug benefits include substantial cost sharing. OBJECTIVE: To determine beneficiaries' knowledge of benefits and cost responses. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Telephone interviews were conducted in 2007 in a stratified random sample of community-dwelling Kaiser Permanente-Northern California Medicare Advantage beneficiaries aged 65 years or older, with a ...

Several treatment principles for the reduction of chronic low back pain associated disability have been postulated. To examine whether a combination of a physical training and operant-behavioral graded activity with problem solving training is cost-effective compared to either alone one year post-treatment, a full economic analysis alongside a randomized controlled ...

The cost-efficiency of payments for environmental services (PES) to private landowners in the Osa Conservation Area, Costa Rica, is evaluated in terms of the trade-off between biodiversity representation and opportunity costs of conservation to agricultural and forestry land-use. Using available GIS data and an 'off-the-shelf' software application called TARGET, we ...

Primary prophylaxis is the emerging standard treatment for boys with severe haemophilia. Tailored (escalating-dose) prophylaxis (EscDose), beginning at a low frequency and escalating with repeated bleeding may prevent arthropathy at a lower cost than standard prophylaxis (SP). From a societal perspective, we compared the incremental cost per joint-haemorrhage that is ...

The study determines the cost-utility of a unilateral electronic knee prosthesis (C-leg) compared to mechanical alternatives in trans-femoral amputees. For each type of prosthesis, 50 patients, treated in a major Italian centre, were enrolled. Quality adjusted life years (QALYs) were estimated from responses to EuroQol (EQ-5D). Healthcare and social costs ...

Cost-benefit or cost-cost analyses are becoming increasingly important in dentistry. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the economic consequences of caries prevention with fluorides. German epidemiological data were used in a system dynamics model to assess the lifelong costs of caries in a population. Without fluoride ...

The methodology for evaluating the impacts and damage costs ('external costs') due to pollution from waste treatment is described and the results are presented, based on the ExternE project series of the European Commission. The damage costs of landfill and incineration of municipal solid waste are compared, with due account ...

OBJECTIVES: We evaluated the economic aspects of an orthopaedic trauma section at a regional Level I, semi-academic community hospital. This study analyzes the economics of a dedicated hospital-based orthopaedic trauma program. METHODS: Institutional financial reports were analyzed for 2 time periods. In the pre-program (PRE) period (2 years), we estimated ...

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of a treatment strategy for symptomatic uterine fibroids, which starts with Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound Surgery (MRgFUS) as compared with current practice comprising uterine artery embolisation, myomectomy and hysterectomy. DESIGN: Cost-utility analysis based on a Markov model. SETTING: National Health Service (NHS) Trusts in England ...

As the cost of healthcare continue to rise, orthopaedic surgeons are being pressured to practice cost-effective healthcare. Consequently, economic evaluation of treatment options are being reported more commonly in medical and surgical literature. As new orthopaedic procedures and treatments may improve patient outcome and function over traditional treatment options, the ...

BACKGROUND: Clinical trials predict the higher initial costs of drug-eluting coronary stents (DES) compared to bare metal stents (BMS) would be partially offset by decreased costs during the first year after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, the costs of DES in nonexperimental settings are not well understood. METHODS: We used ...

INTRODUCTION: In 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started a 3-year colorectal cancer screening demonstration project and funded five programs to explore the feasibility of a colorectal cancer program for the underserved U.S. population. CDC is evaluating the five programs to estimate implementation cost, identify best practices, ...

AIMS: To estimate costs of admission and costs incurred on an annual basis by patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) in Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands. METHODS AND RESULTS: The Euro Heart Survey on AF enrolled 5333 patients with AF in 35 European countries in 2003 and 2004. This ...

This study reviews the recent literature on the relationship between obesity and indirect (non-medical) costs. Medline and Web of Science searches were conducted to identify published studies from 1992 to present that report indirect costs by obesity status; 31 studies were included. The indirect costs were grouped into six categories: ...

Economic evaluation in the form of reports of cost-effectiveness of the treatment and prevention of disease has only recently found widespread application in the visual sciences. While economic evaluation takes a number of forms: cost-minimization analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and cost-effectiveness analysis--it is the latter that is seen most often in ...

The community of Hana, Hawai'i began a program of home modifications to help their elderly prevent falls. We estimated the cost benefit of these modifications from construction costs and published reports of effectiveness and cost of treating falls. We interviewed clients to determine risk of falling. The average cost of ...

OBJECTIVES: To assess the cost-effectiveness of alternative strategies for the treatment of suspected influenza in otherwise healthy adults and to identify future research priorities using value of information analysis. METHODS: A decision model was used to estimate the costs and effects, in terms of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) of amantadine, zanamivir, ...

Previously, comparisons of multiple strategies in health technology assessment have been undertaken on the incremental cost-effectiveness plane using efficiency frontiers and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves. This article proposes shifting the comparison of multiple strategies to the cost-disutility plane. Evidence-based decision making requires comparison of all strategies against each other. Consequently, the ...

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 ...

Allergic rhinitis is common malady with a significant impact on quality of life. It can affect 25% to 35% of people, depending on the population studied. Costs for physicians' visits and medications, and indirect costs of missed school and work and lost productivity, are estimated to be $2 billion annually ...

To document the economic costs and benefits associated with providing dog guide services for blind individuals able to benefit from them. This study estimates the annual cost of dog guide services accounting for cost offsets associated with reduced informal and formal care costs over the working life of the animal ...

Surveillance of patients of cirrhosis of liver is practiced for early detection of HCC. No data from any developing country on cost-effectiveness of such a program are available. Economic evaluation of HCC surveillance was embedded in a prospective study undertaken to estimate the incidence of HCC in 194 cirrhotics. The ...

Abstract Background The recent development and publication of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for acute low back pain (LBP) has resulted in evidence-based recommendations that, if implemented, have the potential to improve the quality and safety of care for acute LBP. While a strategy has been specified for dissemination of ...

Federal, state, and local government agencies require current and accurate cost information for publicly funded substance abuse treatment programs to guide program assessments and reimbursement decisions. The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment published a list of modality-specific cost bands for this purpose in 2002. However, the upper and lower values ...

The aims of this study were to investigate the economic costs of outpatients with schizophrenia in Taiwan, and to survey factors that influence the costs. The direct costs were defined as the costs associated with psychiatric services and other medical treatment. The indirect costs were estimated using the Human Capital ...

Performing economic evaluations of established health care programs is essential to identify and control for underlying program-level variations and to make valid comparisons. At a time when the need for such evaluations is growing, health care professionals have limited information on the methodological challenges of performing these evaluations. In this ...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relative cost-effectiveness in different sub-Saharan African settings of presumptive treatment, field-standard microscopy and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) to diagnose malaria. METHODS: We used a decision tree model and probabilistic sensitivity analysis applied to outpatients presenting at rural health facilities with suspected malaria. Costs and effects encompassed ...

To characterize the costs of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation with high-dose regimens (HDCT), we analyzed clinical information and costs of 315 HDCT recipients during a 4-year study period beginning in 2000. Multivariate analyses were performed to identify pre- and/or post-HDCT factors predicting higher costs within the first year. Overall survival ...

With a limited supply of donor hearts, individuals with end-stage heart failure have been offered hope through the use of mechanical devices. Left ventricular-assist devices (LVADs) are a technology designed to work in parallel with the heart but have yet to see widespread use since uncertainty remains as to the ...

OBJECTIVE: To conduct a critical and systematic literature review of the costs of Crohn's disease (CD) in Western industrialized countries. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Studies published in English that described the cost of CD in Western industrialized countries were identified using three major databases (Medline, EMBASE, and ISI Web of ...

OBJECTIVES: Electronic medical records (EMRs) have been proposed as technology through which the quality of healthcare could be improved. We present an analysis of the cost and productivity implications associated with the transition from transcription to an EMR system in an ambulatory setting. METHODS: Data were collected from eight consecutive ...

OBJECTIVES: To review studies on the cost consequences of compliance and/or persistence in cardiovascular disease (CVD) and related conditions (hypertension, dyslipidaemia, diabetes and heart failure) published since 1995, and to evaluate the effects of noncompliance on healthcare expenditure and the cost-effectiveness of pharmaceutical interventions. METHODS: English language papers published between ...