Public health has been described as the organized activities of society to improve and protect the health of the population. Health economics applied to public health is the study of how we allocate our scarce societal resources to meet our public health wants and needs in the best way possible. This book presents current thinking on health economics methodology and application to the evaluation of public health interventions (PHIs). It is for health economists working in higher education and public healthcare systems, challenged with the economic evaluation of PHIs, when they have been used to applying health economics and the methods of economic evaluation to narrower clinical interventions in primary or secondary care settings. This book will also be of interest to public health practitioners wanting to incorporate health economics into their daily work. This book covers the history of economics of public health and the economic rationale for government investment in prevention; principles of health economics including scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost; evidence synthesis; key methods of economic evaluation with accompanying case studies; economic modelling of public health interventions; return on investment analysis with national and international case studies; and application of programme budgeting and marginal analysis (PBMA) to the prioritization of PHIs. It concludes with priorities for research in the field of public health economics, spanning an acknowledgement of the role played by the natural environment in promoting better health, through to precision public health, recognizing the role of genetics, the environment, and socioeconomic status in determining population health.
The effects of community pharmacy-delivered public health interventions on population health and health inequalities: A review of reviews
