Suchergebnisse

Because economic evaluations of health care services are being published with increasing frequency it is important to (a) evaluate them rigorously and (b) compare the net benefit of the application of one technology with that of others. Four "levels of evidence" that rate economic evaluations on the basis of their methodologic rigour are proposed. They are based on the quality of the methods used to estimate clinical effectiveness, quality of life and costs. With the use of the magnitude of the incremental net benefit of a technology, therapies can also be classified into five "grades of recommendation." A grade A technology is both more effective and cheaper than the existing one, whereas a grade E technology is less or equally effective and more costly. Those of grades B through D are more effective and more costly. A grade B technology costs less than $20,000 per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), a grade C one $20,000 to $100,000/QALY and a grade D one more than $100,000/QALY. Many issues other than cost effectiveness, such as ethical and political considerations, affect the implementation of a new technology. However, it is hoped that these guidelines will provide a framework with which to interpret economic evaluations and to identify additional information that will be useful in making sound decisions on the adoption and utilization of health care services.

INTRODUCTION: The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is developing evidence-based guidance for voluntary screening, treatment and vaccine prevention of infectious diseases for newly arriving migrants to the European Union/European Economic Area. The objective of this systematic review protocol is to guide the identification, appraisal and synthesis of the best available evidence on prevention and assessment of the following priority infectious diseases: tuberculosis, HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, poliomyelitis (polio), Haemophilus influenza disease, strongyloidiasis and schistosomiasis. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The search strategy will identify evidence from existing systematic reviews and then update the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness evidence using prospective trials, economic evaluations and/or recently published systematic reviews. Interdisciplinary teams have designed logic models to help define study inclusion and exclusion criteria, guiding the search strategy and identifying relevant outcomes. We will assess the certainty of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: There are no ethical or safety issues. We anticipate disseminating the findings through open-access publications, conference abstracts and presentations. We plan to publish technical syntheses as GRADEpro evidence summaries and the systematic reviews as part of a special edition open-access publication on refugee health. We are following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for Protocols reporting guideline. This protocol is registered in PROSPERO: CRD42016045798.