• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.385-396
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• 2018

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the economic efficiency of a nutrition management program for children under 5 years of age in Kenge, Kwango District, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) from 2014 to 2016. Methods: The economic efficiency of a nutrition management program for children under 5 years of age who have recovered from malnutrition status was evaluated using a cost-benefit analysis. The costs were analyzed according to the executed budget incurred during the project period. The benefits were estimated as the monetary value of the saved lives of children under 5 years of age. The economic efficiency of the program was determined by the Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR). The BCR was calculated by dividing the total discounted benefit by the total discounted costs. The project is economically efficient when the BCR is greater than 1. Results: The costs of the nutrition management program were calculated as 1,677,609,648 Korean Won (KRW). A total of 2,466 children survived with improved malnutrition status through this program. The benefit for the reduction of mortality for children under 5 years of age was estimated to be 6,814,354,467 KRW, the estimated value of life for 2,466 children. The BCR was 4.06. Conclusions: The nutrition management program for children under 5 years of age in DR Congo was found to be a cost-effective project. Successful and efficient Official Development Assistance (ODA) for a health project requires integrated and comprehensive strategies and specialized international development consulting to improve efficiency. Future nutrition management programs should take into account the national health program to maintain the sustainability of the project.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.10 no.4 s.22
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• pp.85-93
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• 2002

Since the National Geographic Information System(NGIS) project of 1995, the geographic information projects have been promoted in various areas such as central and local governments. In the fact that large scale budget has been invested to geographic information projects as a national policy, the cost-benefit analysis would be essential to enhance the efficiency of the resource allocation. In this circumstance, this study analyzes the costs and benefits of geographic information produced by NGI(National Geography Institute). As a result of the cost-benefit analysis, the total amount of benefits were estimated approximately 620 million dollars and the accumulated ratio of the cost to benefit was 1 to 4.4. Also, the internal ratio of the benefit was 38%, which justified the large scale investment. In case of adding qualitative benefits which can not be measured in a quantitative term, the overall benefits from using such geographic information would be much higher than quantitative benefits. Further research work is required for more objective verification of the large scale national project such as building nationwide geographic information.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.43-80
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• 2014

This study suggests a model for calculating total benefit rigorously to use the contingent valuation method (CVM) in cost-benefit analysis (CBA). Estimating households' willingness to pay through survey method, the study attempts to demonstrate if a respondent's income and the distance between a respondent's residence and the location of a target facility affect her willingness to pay. The estimation results from a structural model show that income and distance-decay effects exist and that the calculated total benefit varies largely when these effects are ignored. The study emphasizes the effects of income and distance-decay on the total benefit must be carefully considered in using CVM for CBA. Even though the total project cost is precisely estimated, the benefit/cost (B/C) ratio may differ largely when the total benefit is not correctly calculated. Also, an ad hoc model generates significantly different estimates from the utility difference model this study adopted. The difference in estimates suggests that the total benefit has to be estimated by a structural model. Finally, simulations are performed to check the validity of the model as well as to predict consequences when income and distance-decay effects are not properly treated. The results from simulations reveal it is not desirable to ignore those effects considering the perspectives of balanced regional development.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.183-196
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• 2016

Objectives: There is no systematic review on economic evaluations of telemedicine in Japan, despite over 1000 trials implemented. Our systematic review aims to examine whether Japan's telemedicine is cost-saving or cost-effective, examine the methodological rigorousness of the economic evaluations, and discuss future studies needed to improve telemedicine's financial sustainability. Methods: We searched five databases, including two Japanese databases, to find peer-reviewed articles published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2014 in English and Japanese that performed economic evaluations of Japan's telemedicine programs. The methodological rigorousness of the economic analyses was assessed with a well-established checklist. We calculated the benefit-to-cost ratio (BCR) when a reviewed study reported related data but did not report the BCR. All cost values were adjusted to 2014 US dollars. Results: Among the 17 articles identified, six studies reported on settings connecting physicians for specialist consultations, and eleven studies on settings connecting healthcare providers and patients at home. There are three cost-benefit analyses and three cost-minimization analyses. The remaining studies measured the benefit of telemedicine only, using medical expenditure saved or users' willingness-to-pay. There was substantial diversity in the methodological rigorousness. Studies on teledermatology and teleradiology indicated a favorable level of economic efficiency. Studies on telehomecare gave mixed results. One cost-benefit analysis on telehomecare indicated a low economic efficiency, partly due to public subsidy rules, e.g., a too short budget period. Conclusions: Overall, telemedicine programs in Japan were indicated to have a favorable level of economic efficiency. However, the scarcity of the economic literature indicates the need for further rigorous economic evaluation studies.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.362-373
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the costs and benefits of individual home visiting health care using secondary data and literature review. Methods: The total number of subjects was 1,008,837. A specific program was classified into disease management, care of infant, child and women, or elderly care. The costs and effects of a program were identified from a societal perspective, and the effects were converted into monetary terms or benefits. The total cost was calculated in the way that medical expenses, travel costs and productivity losses were offset by the decrease in benefits and thus only the program budget was included in the total cost. Results: The total program cost was 47.6 billion won per year and the total annual benefit was estimated at 435.6 billion won. The benefits of arthritis management were the biggest among disease management programs. The net benefit was 388.0 billion won per year and the benefit/cost ratio was 9.16. Conclusion: Home visiting health care was validated to be economically effective. It made a positive contribution to improving the health status of vulnerable populations and reducing medical expenses. These results suggest that home visiting care should be extended more broadly to vulnerable populations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of School Health
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.123-131
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• 2016

Purpose: Human Papillomavirus(HPV) vaccination is the best prevention for cervical cancer. Therefore, this study was to examine the best predictors of HPV vaccination status in female nursing university students. Methods: Five hundred and forty junior and senior female nursing students from Seoul and provinces of Kyunggi, Chungcheong and Gyungsang completed paper and pencil questionnaires. Descriptive statistics, $x^2$ test, t-test, and multiple logistic regression with dummy variables were conducted using SAS 9.2. Results: Of the total students, 56.8% were vaccinated. As a result of the analysis of the bivariate relationships, family economic status, school type, perceived susceptibility, perceived benefit and perceived barriers (cost, time, distance from hospital and side effects) were significantly related to vaccination status. After controlling for the general characteristics and the HPV related knowledge score, higher family economic status (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR]: 3.78, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.21~11.76), private university (AOR: 1.69, 95% CI: 1.14~2.53), higher perceived benefit (AOR: 1.80, 95% CI: 1.47~2.20), lower perceived barrier (cost) (AOR: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.74~0.99), lower perceived barrier (time) (AOR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.61~0.84), and lower perceived barrier (side effects) (AOR: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.72~0.94) were significantly related to HPV vaccination. Perceived benefit, perceived barrier (time) and perceived barrier (side effects) were the top 3 predictors of HPV vaccination status. Conclusion: This study suggests that vaccinated female nursing students were more likely to be from higher family economic status and private universities and have a higher perception of benefit and a lower perception of barriers (cost, time, and side effects). Thus, efforts to increase HPV vaccination rates of female nursing students should focus on improving their perception of benefit while lowering their perception of barriers, particularly cost, time and side effects.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.57 no.2
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• pp.297-320
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• 2005

This study was attempted to give aids in making 'the Disability Discrimination Act' by estimating the potential Cost-Benefit in case that the discrimination on the disabled is removed. The potential benefits from this Disability Discrimination Act are calculated considering the income increase of the people with disabilities from additional employment for them and the decrease of employment levies and the public assistance benefits. The potential cost was made focusing on the following 2 expenses- the extra expenditures that the owners of companies had to invest from the employment of the disabled and the managing expenses for correcting discrimination organizations. As the result of this estimation, the potential net present value under the 7% discount rate is very high as 12,700,301 million won and the cost-benefit ratio is also great as 96.8. The consequence of the sensitive analysis in changing the discount rate also does not have great changes. As the result of these estimating results, it is known that when the discrimination is solved by the 'Disability Discrimination Act', the pure benefit of our society will become tremendous. After all, it could be said that the need for 'the Disability Discrimination Act' is emphasized and should be emphasized.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.85-107
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• 2015

This study analyzes the effect of applying hyperbolic social discount rate onto the results of benefit-cost analysis of environmental public investment projects in Korea. In order to check the application possibility to the actual feasibility study, the discount factors generated by hyperbolic function, rather than traditional exponential one, would be applied to the benefit and cost data from the pre-feasibility studies which peformed for environmental public investment projects. The results of this study shows that using hyperbolic social discount rate is effective for enhancing test results, only under the condition of which the full expansion of the time periods of analysis is satisfied. According to the simulation results of this study, to achieve higher benefit/cost ratio by using hyperbolic social discount rate, the period should be increased up to 120 to 150 years at least.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.12 no.1 s.28
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• pp.79-85
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• 2004

The GIS(Geographic Information System) projects require big initial investment and cost of maintenance. Decision makers would not launch GIS projects unless they are convinced of the benefits of the projects. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to develop an appropriate model for GIS project evaluation. We proposed a GIS project evaluation model and summarize the steps involved in Cost-Benefit Analysis(CBA). The costs of a GIS implementation include hardware and software cost, costs of database development, training expenses, annual maintenance expenses, and other annual expenses. The benefit by using GIS has been assessed into Type I(direct benefits), Type II(indirect benefits), Type III(benefits that result from the sale of information services), Type IV(intangible benefits).

• Journal of Genetic Medicine
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.111-118
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• 2008

Purpose: Neonatal screening tests are increasingly being used forearly diagnosis of inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) in the hope of avoiding the severe developmental delay, acute illness, and death that may result from these diseases. In this study, a cost-benefit analysis was performed on the neonatal screening of maple syrup urine disease, homocystinuria, galactosemia, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia in Korea. Materials and Methods: This study included 1,259,220 Korean newborns born between January 2005 to December 2007, who were screened for maple syrup urine disease, homocystinuria, galactosemia, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. We calculated and compared the total costs in cases where these four screening tests were implemented, and those where they were not. Results: There were no benefits to screening for maple syrup urine disease or homocystinuria due to their low prevalence for these two tests, the costs exceeded the benefits at benefit:cost ratios of 0.5:1 and 0.6:1, respectively. In contrast, benefits far exceed costs at a ratio of 4.1:1 for galactosemia and 2.9:1 for congenital adrenal hyperplasia. The average benefit:cost ratio for all four tests was 2.0:1. Conclusion: Neonatal screening tests for maple syrup urine disease, homocystinuria, galactosemia, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia are financially viable.