ABSTRACT
Health economics is a science that deals with the economic aspects of health and
healthcare. Individual and collected decisions that affect health are analyzed in
terms of their costs and benefits (utility). Prevention involves using resources
for avoiding the occurrence of events. Prevention can be seen as an investment,
which involves costs up front and creates benefits in terms of disease and illness
avoided in the future. Economic evaluation is a method aimed at assessing, in a
systematic way, the costs and benefits of this investment. In an economic evalu-
ation, resources used are valued according to their “opportunity cost,” that is,
their forgone value in the best alternative use. There may be an opportunity
cost even if no money is paid out. For example, a visit to the physician for a
check-up of an abnormality can have an opportunity cost even if it is free. The
time used for the visit could have been used for other production or consumption.
The identification, quantification, and valuation of resources used for prevention
are an important part of an economic evaluation. But equally important is the
assessment of the benefits gained by this investment. Those benefits may come
much later in time and may only be arising with a certain probability, and will
therefore be associated with a high uncertainty.
