TY  - BOOK
AU  - Santos-Ocampo,Perla D.
AU  - Rogacion,Jossie M.
TI  - Disease control priorities for child health in the tropics
KW  - Quality-Adjusted Life Years
KW  - Childhood Diseases
KW  - DALY
KW  - Disability-Adjusted Life Years
N2  - Child health is an important indicator in measuring national development. this is particularly true in developing countries with meager resources  where  children  constitute  a  large  percentage  of  the  population.  One  cannot  overemphasize  its  significance  in  tropical, developing  countries  like  those  in  Asia  and  Africa  where  childhood  morbidity  and  mortality  are  highest  especially  in  the  under-five age bracket. It is also in these countries where infectious diseases consistently rank as major causes of deaths. realizing the short-term and long-term devastating effects on the health of individual children of developing nations and the resulting implications on national development,  the  formulation  of  strategies  to  address  these  problems  in  the  context  of  economic  evaluation  has  increasingly  become a  priority  for  developing  countries.    Economic  evaluation  deals  with  costs  and  consequences.  It  is  basically  determining  which  of  the available interventions will utilize the least amount of resources without sacrificing the effectiveness of such strategies and the benefits that are gained from their implementation.

This paper discusses economic evaluation of strategies to control specific diseases in children in the tropics as published in Disease control Priorities  Project  (second  edition):  diarrhea,  respiratory  diseases,  tuberculosis  (tb),  malaria,  HIV/AIDs  and  malnutrition.  It  uses  cost-effectiveness analysis (cEA) utilizing disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) as the consequence or effect. One DALY represents the loss of one year of equivalent full health. For diarrhea, the most cost-effective strategy is breastfeeding promotion. Improved case management, using  the  Integrated  Management  of childhood  Illness  (IMcI)  approach  has  resulted  in  significant  reduction  in  mortality  in  children with  Acute respiratory  Infections  below  five  years  old.  Direct  Observed therapy short-course(DOts)  is  currently  considered  the  most cost-effective intervention even in the most severe and infectious forms of tb.  the use of combination drug treatment is the most cost-effective strategy in the treatment of malaria. Interventions directed towards both the host and the vector of malaria are also considered cost-effective.  Data  on  cost-effective  strategies  in  preventing  AIDs  are  lacking  and  treatment  strategies  are  expensive  because  of  the prohibitive cost of drugs used for treatment. community-based health programs have been found to be most cost-effective in the battle against malnutrition.Economic evaluation of interventions and strategies to reduce childhood illness, disability and death has become imperative and is very important in developing countries with limited resources such as those in the tropics.Key Words : economic evaluation; cost-effectiveness analysis; DALY; childhood diseasesFEATURED  ARTICLE8       Child  health  has  become  the  priority  of  all  nations, whether rich or poor, and has become an important indicator for  which  national  development  is  measured.  Control  of diseases  affecting  children  has  been  in  the  forefront  of national  and  international  endeavors.  In  the  State  of  the World’s  Children  20051,  the  UNICEF  estimates  that  more than one billion children are denied a healthy and protected upbringing,  as  promised  by  the  Convention  on  the  Rights of  the  Child  (CRC).    The  United  Nations’  Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)2  have been formulated to tackle the problem  of child health either directly or indirectly and to ensure that  the promises of the CRC are kept. The  United  Nations’  Millennium  Development  Goals: Implications on Child HealthTable  1  lists  the  United  Nations’  MDGs.  Reduction  in childhood  mortality  (goal  4)  directly  addresses  the  need  to focus  on  saving  the  lives  of  children.  Parallel  to  reducing childhood mortality is the improvement of maternal health (goal  5),  which  will  ensure  that  children  are  born  healthy. Improving  the  literacy  rate  among  women  by  universal primary  education  (goal  2)  and  gender  equality  (goal  3) will  translate  to  better  delivery  of  quality  child  health  care practices. Halting and reversing the spread of malaria, HIV and  other  diseases  (goal  6)  focuses  on  the  impact  of  these

UR  - https://actamedicaphilippina.upm.edu.ph/index.php/acta/article/view/2362/1693
ER  -