Gesundheitsökonomische Methoden in der Prävention

The methodological principles of the economic evaluation of health care interventions have been well developed and widely harmonised. A number of specific challenges, however, appear to arise when it comes to evaluating primary prevention and health promotion interventions as opposed to clinical ones. This article discusses the following of those challenges: (1) What is the“right” perspective to be used to evaluate the interventions? (2) To what extent and how should the costs resulting from additional life years gained through prevention be captured? (3) Should the time costs associated with people’s preventive activities be reflected in the costs of the intervention? (4) Which types of the effects of prevention are relevant from a health economic perspective? (5) Can and/or should the distributional effects of preventive interventions be taken into account?