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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:
In prioritizing health care spending, health professionals rank childhood immunization highest and cancer treatment for smokers lowest, according to a new international survey published in PLoS Medicine.
The survey found that health professionals generally prioritize spending on the young over the old and on preventive care over curative care.
Yet this preference is at odds with the actual spending priorities in most countries throughout the world---most governments spend more on curative than on preventive health care services.
Glenn Salkeld (University of Sydney, Australia) and colleagues surveyed 253 health professionals from six countries, asking them to rank ten health interventions in order of priority for spending from most important (rank 1) to least important (rank 10).
"If health care professionals and policy makers believe that prevention and targeting the young is an important principle for health spending priorities, then health care funders should examine the cost effectiveness evidence for intervening early in life."
PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal.
It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues.
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.
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Posted on February 20, 2007 06:57 PM
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