Cost-Benefit Analysis of Health Interventions: A Critical Review

Economic evaluation of health interventions is critical for efficient allocation of resources. The aim of this study was to critically review empirical studies on the cost-benefit of health interventions published over the last 40 years.
This study was carried out by searching seven databases (PubMed, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Web of science, Science Direct, Scopus, Springer Link, and SID) using appropriate keywords to find articles on the cost-benefit of health interventions published during 1975-2015. All the relatedretrieved articles were analyzed after quality assessment using a valid check list.
A total of 33studies on the cost-benefit of health interventions during the last 40 years were included in the review; 39%, 37%, 21% and 3%of the studies had been conducted in Asia, America, Europe and Africa, respectively. The subjects dealt with in most ofthe studies (79%) were related to immunization, education, healthy nutrition and use of health technologies. Further analysis of the data showed mental health education, healthy nutrition, use of safety equipment while driving, vaccination, diagnostic and screening tests, and oral and dental healthto have considerable clinical and economic benefits.
The number of studies on the cost-benefit analysis of health interventions is increasing. Preventive and promotive interventions can help planners and policy-makers to better utilize the limited resources in the health sector aiming at promoting health of the people.