International Journal of Collaborative Research on Internal Medicine & Public Health

Cost-Benefit Analysis of a Community-Based Stroke Prevention Program in Bao Shan District, Shanghai, China

Background: Stroke is a serious problem faced by society. This disease brings not only health problems to individuals suffering from it, but also a serious economic burden to patients and their families. Moreover, it reduces social benefits and the labor force. Therefore, it is important to think about the efficient control and prevention of this disease. It is well known that hypertension is the main cause of stroke. In Bao Shan District, located in Shanghai, China, a community-based prevention program has been in place since 1995. The program is trying to reduce the number of stroke patients and the costs to treat them, mainly by hypertension control and treatment.

Objectives: The purpose of this paper is to show the data, describe the results and give a cost-benefit analysis of the program according to data from 1995 to 1997.

Methods: The data is calculated by using the method of cost-benefit analysis.

Results: According to the cost-benefit analysis of the program, because the incidence of stroke goes down after the hypertension prevention work is taken, the16 patients will not face economic loss because of stoke after the prevention. This is the biggest benefit of this community-based program. The input of this program is RMB 293,573 and the output is RMB 1,062.204; the ratio of cost and benefit is: cost: benefit=1:3.57. (The official currency of the People's Republic of China; RMB/USD currency exchange rate is 1: 0.1473).

Conclusion: The economic burden and the Cost-Benefit Analysis can provide important data to the medical and public health departments in order to make the pertinent prevention policy.

Author(s): Yan Huang , Jing Ren

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