tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Can Commun Dis Rep
. 2023 Jun 1;49(6):263-273.
doi: 10.14745/ccdr.v49i06a03. Quantifying the economic gains associated with COVID-19 vaccination in the Canadian population: A cost-benefit analysis
Ashleigh R Tuite[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Victoria Ng[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Raphael Ximenes[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Alan Diener[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Ellen Rafferty[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Nicholas H Ogden[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Matthew Tunis[SUP] 1 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Background: Vaccination has been a key part of Canada's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic response. Although the clinical benefits of vaccination are clear, an understanding of the population-level benefits of vaccination relative to the programmatic costs is of value. The objective of this article is to quantify the economic impact of COVID-19 vaccination in the Canadian population between December 2020 and March 2022.
Methods: We conducted a model-based cost-benefit analysis of Canada's COVID-19 vaccination program. We used an epidemiological model to estimate the number of COVID-19 symptomatic cases, hospitalizations, post-COVID condition (PCC) cases, and deaths in the presence and absence of vaccination. Median, lower and upper 95% credible interval (95% CrI) outcome values from 100 model simulations were used to estimate the direct and indirect costs of illness, including the value of health. We used a societal perspective and a 1.5% discount rate.
Results: We estimated that the costs of the vaccination program were far outweighed by the savings associated with averted infections and associated downstream consequences. Vaccination increased the net benefit by CAD $298.1 billion (95% CrI: 27.2-494.6) compared to the no vaccination counterfactual. The largest benefits were due to averted premature mortality, resulting in an estimated $222.0 billion (95% CrI: 31.2-379.0) benefit.
Conclusion: Our model-based economic evaluation provides a retrospective assessment of COVID-19 vaccination during the first 16 months of the program in Canada and suggests that it was welfare-improving, considering the decreased hospitalizations and use of healthcare resources, deaths averted and lower morbidity from conditions such as PCC.
Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; cost-benefit analysis; health economics; modelling; vaccination.
. 2023 Jun 1;49(6):263-273.
doi: 10.14745/ccdr.v49i06a03. Quantifying the economic gains associated with COVID-19 vaccination in the Canadian population: A cost-benefit analysis
Ashleigh R Tuite[SUP] 1 2 [/SUP], Victoria Ng[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Raphael Ximenes[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Alan Diener[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Ellen Rafferty[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Nicholas H Ogden[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Matthew Tunis[SUP] 1 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 38440772
- PMCID: PMC10911688
- DOI: 10.14745/ccdr.v49i06a03
Background: Vaccination has been a key part of Canada's coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic response. Although the clinical benefits of vaccination are clear, an understanding of the population-level benefits of vaccination relative to the programmatic costs is of value. The objective of this article is to quantify the economic impact of COVID-19 vaccination in the Canadian population between December 2020 and March 2022.
Methods: We conducted a model-based cost-benefit analysis of Canada's COVID-19 vaccination program. We used an epidemiological model to estimate the number of COVID-19 symptomatic cases, hospitalizations, post-COVID condition (PCC) cases, and deaths in the presence and absence of vaccination. Median, lower and upper 95% credible interval (95% CrI) outcome values from 100 model simulations were used to estimate the direct and indirect costs of illness, including the value of health. We used a societal perspective and a 1.5% discount rate.
Results: We estimated that the costs of the vaccination program were far outweighed by the savings associated with averted infections and associated downstream consequences. Vaccination increased the net benefit by CAD $298.1 billion (95% CrI: 27.2-494.6) compared to the no vaccination counterfactual. The largest benefits were due to averted premature mortality, resulting in an estimated $222.0 billion (95% CrI: 31.2-379.0) benefit.
Conclusion: Our model-based economic evaluation provides a retrospective assessment of COVID-19 vaccination during the first 16 months of the program in Canada and suggests that it was welfare-improving, considering the decreased hospitalizations and use of healthcare resources, deaths averted and lower morbidity from conditions such as PCC.
Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; cost-benefit analysis; health economics; modelling; vaccination.