Priority setting of health interventions: the need for multi-criteria decision analysis

Table 2 Scoring the options.

Options	Cost-effectiveness	Severity of disease	Disease of the poor	Age	Total
Antiretroviral treatment in HIV/AIDS	50	100	100	0	70
Treatment of childhood pneumonia	100	100	100	100	100
Inpatient care for acute schizophrenia	0	50	0	0	5
Plastering for simple fractures	100	25	0	50	48
Weights	40	10	40	10

Preference scores for 'cost-effectiveness' are obviously inverse to its values, and are based on three categories: it scores 0 if the cost-effectiveness is higher than US$300 per DALY, 50 if between US$100 and US$300, and 100 if below US$100 per DALY. For 'disease of the poor', if the feature is present, it scores 100, otherwise 0. Preference scores for 'severity of disease' are scaled between 0 and 100 in proportion to their stars. Assuming decision makers have a preference to treat young people over old, '0–14 years' receives a score of 100, '15 years and older' a score of 0, and 'all ages' a score of 50. Preference scores are presented here for illustrative purposes only, and are arbitrary.

ISSN: 1478-7547