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The economic efficiency of prenatal screening

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Chorion Villus

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Abstract

It is increasingly being recognized that in order to make the best use of available resources economic efficiency must be considered in deciding whether or not, and to what extent, particular health care services should be provided. Economic efficiency simply means (a) maximizing the health and welfare produced from any given health care budget; (b) minimizing the cost of providing any given health care service; and (c) maximizing the excess of benefit over cost — where cost is defined as the loss of those benefits that the resources consumed would have produced in their next best alternative use. Cost-effectiveness analysis is used to help attain objectives (a) and (b) and cost-benefit analysis to help attain objective (c) (Sugden and Williams, 1978; Drummond, 1980; Drummond and Mooney, 1982).

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Authors
  1. John B. Henderson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Obstetrics, City Hospital, Hucknall Rd., Nottingham, UK

    D. T. Y. Liu MD FRCOG

  2. Dept. of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen’s Medical Centre, University Hospital, Nottingham, UK

    E. M. Symonds MD FRCOG (Chairman) (Chairman)

  3. Dept. of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, USA

    M. S. Golbus MD

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© 1987 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Henderson, J.B. (1987). The economic efficiency of prenatal screening. In: Liu, D.T.Y., Symonds, E.M., Golbus, M.S. (eds) Chorion Villus. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3362-1_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3362-1_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-412-27910-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-3362-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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