ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1466552
Economic evaluation of evidence-based strategies to reduce unhealthy alcohol use: A resource allocation guide AUTHORS
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
- 2Pacific Institute For Research and Evaluation, Beltsville, Maryland, United States
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In the context of With limited budgets to implement public health measures, costeffectiveness is an important factor for policy makers to consider. Evidence from high-income countries on the outcomes and costs of interventions demonstrating success in reducing alcohol-related harm offers provide a useful valuable guide guidance for resource allocation decisions in low-and middle-income countriessettings.Published reviews of interventions shown or likely to reduce alcohol-attributable harm were identified. Data on outcomes was extracted and standardized adjustments made to facilitate allow consistent reporting of return on investment. Intervention costs were calculated using a 'bottom-up' approach based on quantity of resources and the value (or unit price) of units. Benefit-cost ratios and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were calculated for each intervention were calculated.Across Within each of the various categories of alcohol harm prevention reduction programs, interventions demonstrating good value for money were identifiedfound that represented value for money. These categories were availability of alcohol; marketing of alcoholic beverages; pricing policies; drink driving policies and countermeasures; workplace interventions; health sector programs; youth development programs; and school-based substance abuse prevention.Consistent estimates of return on investment of alcohol harm reduction interventions provide an effective filtering mechanism to filter out eliminate interventions offering of questionable value. Other factors for pPolicymakers should also to use consider factors such in selecting a package of prevention programs are as political feasibility, local priorities, cultural appropriateness for the target population, cultural sensitivity, affordability, and the immediacy of the impact when selecting a comprehensive package of strategiesmust also be considered.
Keywords: alcohol harm, Alcohol policy, prevention, Resource Allocation, economic evaluation
Received: 31 Jul 2024; Accepted: 01 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hendrie and Miller. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Delia Hendrie, School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
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