IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2007.127134_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the value of public health systems: The disconnect between health economists and public health practitioners

Author

Listed:
  • Neumann, P.J.
  • Jacobson, P.D.
  • Palmer, J.A.

Abstract

We investigated ways of defining and measuring the value of services provided by governmental public health systems. Our data sources included literature syntheses and qualitative interviews of public health professionals. Our examination of the health economic literature revealed growing attempts to measure value of public health services explicitly, but few studies have addressed systems or infrastructure. Interview responses demonstrated no consensus on metrics and no connection to the academic literature. Key challenges for practitioners include developing rigorous, data-driven methods and skilled staff; being politically willing to base allocation decisions on economic evaluation; and developing metrics to capture "intangibles" (e.g., social justice and reassurance value). Academic researchers evaluating the economics of public health investments should increase focus on the working needs of public health professionals.

Suggested Citation

  • Neumann, P.J. & Jacobson, P.D. & Palmer, J.A., 2008. "Measuring the value of public health systems: The disconnect between health economists and public health practitioners," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 98(12), pages 2173-2180.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2007.127134_4
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2007.127134
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2007.127134
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2007.127134?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Gori & Cristiana Mammana & Piero Manfredi & Elisabetta Michetti, 2022. "Economic development with deadly communicable diseases and public prevention," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(5), pages 912-943, October.
    2. Tarik Benmarhnia & Pierre-Alexandre Dionne & Éric Tchouaket & Alvine K. Fansi & Astrid Brousselle, 2017. "Investing in a healthy lifestyle strategy: is it worth it?," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 62(1), pages 3-13, January.
    3. Dukhanin, Vadim & Searle, Alexandra & Zwerling, Alice & Dowdy, David W. & Taylor, Holly A. & Merritt, Maria W., 2018. "Integrating social justice concerns into economic evaluation for healthcare and public health: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 27-35.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2007.127134_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.