•South Korea plans to invest in green roof projects under the Green New Deal plan.•The government needs to examine the public acceptance and economic value of the plan.•The analysis applied the ...contingent valuation method using survey data.•We assess households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for green roof projects.•The mean annual WTP is calculated to be KRW 4,445 (USD 3.77) per household.
Green roofs mitigate the adverse effects of urbanization, and provide multiple social, economic and environmental benefits. Many countries are taking bold initiatives to install green roofs to achieve these benefits. Considering the high construction and maintenance cost of green roofs, it is necessary to analyse the economic value of green roof projects and to assess their economic feasibility. This study analyses the public’s willingness to pay for the building of green roofs in South Korea, using the contingent valuation method. The results show that the public are willing to pay KRW 4,445 (USD 3.77) per household per year, and the total annual economic value of South Korea’s green roof projects is estimated to be KRW 90.5 billion (USD 76.7 million). The results of a cost–benefit analysis show that, in the three cities for which the empirical analysis was carried out, the green roof project was only economically feasible for Seoul, which implies that the economic feasibility of green roof projects strongly depends on the size and population of the city. Therefore, in terms of economic efficiency, it is desirable to implement such projects mainly in densely populated areas.
Drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) is undermining TB control in South Africa. However, there are hardly any data about the cost of treating DR-TB in high burden settings despite such information ...being quintessential for the rational planning and allocation of resources by policy-makers, and to inform future cost-effectiveness analyses.
We analysed the comparative 2011 United States dollar ($) cost of diagnosis and treatment of drug sensitive TB (DS-TB), MDR-TB and XDR-TB, based on National South African TB guidelines, from the perspective of the National TB Program using published clinical outcome data.
Assuming adherence to national DR-TB management guidelines, the per patient cost of XDR-TB was $26,392, four times greater than MDR-TB ($6772), and 103 times greater than drug-sensitive TB ($257). Despite DR-TB comprising only 2.2% of the case burden, it consumed ~32% of the total estimated 2011 national TB budget of US $218 million. 45% and 25% of the DR-TB costs were attributed to anti-TB drugs and hospitalization, respectively. XDR-TB consumed 28% of the total DR-TB diagnosis and treatment costs. Laboratory testing and anti-TB drugs comprised the majority (71%) of MDR-TB costs while hospitalization and anti-TB drug costs comprised the majority (92%) of XDR-TB costs. A decentralized XDR-TB treatment programme could potentially reduce costs by $6930 (26%) per case and reduce the total amount spent on DR-TB by ~7%.
Although DR-TB forms a very small proportion of the total case burden it consumes a disproportionate and substantial amount of South Africa's total annual TB budget. These data inform rational resource allocation and selection of management strategies for DR-TB in high burden settings.
A comparison of the costs of residential care and home care shows that the former is more expensive for society. However, elderly people seem to be happier in residential care. All stakeholders, ...except the state (and thus the taxpayer), benefit if elderly people enter residential care. This reveals that payment systems in the Netherlands contain adverse incentives stimulating entry into residential care. The research is based on surveys of older people in the Netherlands living at home and those living in residential care homes in the period 2007-2009. Propensity score matching is used to match people living at home with those living in residential care. All costs of living and health care are compared for these two groups.
Structural health monitoring is recognized as a viable solution to increase aviation safety and decrease operating costs enabling a novel maintenance approach based on the actual condition of the ...airframe, mitigating operating costs induced by scheduled inspections. However, the net benefit is hardly demonstrated, and it is still unclear how the implementation of such an autonomic system can affect performance at aircraft level. To close this gap, this paper presents a systematic analysis where the impact of cost and weight of integrating permanently attached sensors—used for diagnostics- affect the main performance of the aircraft. Through a multidisciplinary aircraft analysis framework, the increment of aircraft operating empty weight is compared with the possible benefits in terms of direct operating costs to identify a breakeven point. Furthermore, the analysis allows to establish a design guideline for structural health monitoring systems returning a safer aircraft without any economic penalties. The results show that the operating costs are lower than those of the reference aircraft up to 4% increase in maximum take-off weight. Paper findings suggest to considering a condition monitoring strategy from the conceptual design stage, since it could maximize the impact of such innovative technology. However, it involves in a design of a brand-new aircraft instead of a modification of an existing one.
Community health programs aimed at addressing the social determinants of health often face challenges demonstrating their impact through traditional economic evaluation methods of ...return-on-investment analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, or cost-benefit analysis. Using a social-return-on-investment (SROI) analysis, we evaluated the broader social, environmental, and economic benefits of Bon Secours Hospital's Housing for Health program, an affordable housing program aimed at addressing the social and environmental determinants affecting its community's health in Baltimore, Maryland. Bon Secours currently has 801 units of affordable housing across twelve properties in West Baltimore. Results indicate the significant social value of the Bon Secours affordable housing program, generating between $1.30 and $1.92 of social return in the community for every dollar in yearly operating costs. These findings suggest that broader access to affordable housing could produce a positive social value and demonstrate the relevance of SROI for quantifying the impacts of community health programs.
Summary
Postoperative pain might be different after intravenous vs. oral paracetamol. We systematically reviewed randomised controlled trials in patients >15 years that compared intravenous with oral ...paracetamol for postoperative pain. We identified 14 trials with 1695 participants. There was inconclusive evidence for an effect of route of paracetamol administration on postoperative pain at 0–2 h (734 participants), 2–6 h (766 participants), 6–24 h (1115 participants) and >24 h (248 participants), with differences in standardised mean (95%CI) pain scores for intravenous vs. oral of −0.17 (−0.45 to 0.10), −0.09 (−0.24 to 0.06), 0.06 (−0.12 to 0.23) and 0.03 (−0.22 to 0.28), respectively. Trial sequential analyses suggested that a total of 3948 participants would be needed to demonstrate a meaningful difference in pain or its absence at 0–2 h. There were no differences in secondary outcomes. Intravenous paracetamol is more expensive than oral paracetamol. Substitution of oral paracetamol in half the patients given intravenous paracetamol in our hospital would save around £ 38,711 (€ 43,960 or US$ 47,498) per annum.
The World Health Assembly has adopted a global strategy to eliminate cervical cancer. However, neither the optimal pathway nor the corresponding economic and health benefits have been evaluated. We ...take China as an example to assess the optimal pathway towards elimination and the cost-effectiveness of tailored actions.
A validated hybrid model was used to assess the costs and benefits of alternative strategies combining human papillomavirus vaccination, cervical screening, and treatment of pre-invasive lesions and invasive cancer for females with different immunization history. All Chinese females living or projected to be born during 2015-2100, under projected trends in aging, urbanization, and sexual activity, were considered. Optimal strategies were determined by cost-effectiveness efficiency frontiers. Primary outcomes were cervical cancer cases and deaths averted and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). We employed a lifetime horizon from a societal perspective. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses evaluate model uncertainty.
The optimal pathway represents an integration of multiple tailored strategies from females with different immunization history. If China adopts the optimal pathway, the age-standardized incidence of cervical cancer is predicted to decrease to fewer than four new cases per 100,000 women (i.e., elimination) by 2047 (95% confidence interval 2043 to 2050). Compared to the status quo, the optimal pathway would avert a total of 7,509,192 (6,922,744 to 8,359,074) cervical cancer cases and 2,529,873 (2,366,826 to 2,802,604) cervical cancer deaths in 2021-2100, with the discounted ICER being $- 339 (- 687 to - 79) per quality-adjusted life-year.
By adopting an optimal pathway from 2021 (namely, the year of the first Chinese Centennial Goals) onwards, cervical cancer could be eliminated by the late 2040s (namely, ahead of the second Chinese Centennial Goals) while saving net economic costs in China.
This study investigated economic returns and energy use of alternative rice production systems in North Vietnam with various residue management options. The traditional practice of open burning of ...rice residues (System A) was compared with the alternative of converting residues to biochar, which was returned to the paddy fields (System B). It was assumed that households used improved cook-stoves and drum ovens to produce biochar, and that the agronomic impacts of biochar compound with increasing biochar applications until reaching maximum benefit at 18 Mg ha−1. This amount of biochar would take eight years to be produced in pyrolytic cook-stoves and drum ovens using the rice residues produced on-site. The net present value (NPV) of producing rice in the two systems was calculated based on their expected streams of costs and benefits. Biochar addition enhanced the NPV of rice by 12% and reduced the non-renewable energy intensity by 27%, relative to System A, after eight years of application. The difference in NPV values between production systems significantly increased to 23% and 71% by crediting GHG emissions abatement in low and high carbon price scenarios, respectively. These findings demonstrate the potential economic benefits of converting rice residues to biochar for soil application.
•This study calculated economic and energy benefits of using residues in rice production systems.•Net present value (NPV) of rice improved by 12%, after eight years of biochar addition.•Biochar use reduced the energy intensity of rice farming by 27%.•The existence of a carbon market could significantly enhance the profitability of biochar use.•The ΔNPV of rice systems is sensitive to the rice price, rice yield and labour cost.
Background: This study is a cost-benefit analysis that quantifies the social and economic benefits to household lead paint hazard control compared with the investments needed to minimize exposure to ...these hazards. Objectives: This research updates estimates of elevated blood lead levels among a cohort of children ≤ 6 years of age and compiles recent research to determine a range of the costs of lead paint hazard control ($1-$11 billion) and the benefits of reduction attributed to each cohort for health care ($11-$53 billion), lifetime earnings ($165-$233 billion), tax revenue ($25-$35 billion), special education ($30-$146 million), attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder ($267 million), and the direct costs of crime ($1.7 billion). Results: Each dollar invested in lead paint hazard control results in a return of $17-$221 or a net savings of $181-269 billion. Conclusions: There are substantial returns to investing in lead hazard control, particularly targeted at early intervention in communities most likely at risk. Given the high societal costs of inaction, lead hazard control appears to be well worth the price.
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