Abstract
Background: Exposure to indoor allergens contributes to increased asthma morbidity. The Inner-City Asthma Study, a randomized trial involving home environmental allergen and irritant remediation among children aged 6 through 11 years with moderate-to-severe asthma, successfully reduced asthma symptoms. A cost-effectiveness analysis can help stakeholders to evaluate the potential costs and benefits of adopting such a program. Objective: We sought to assess the cost-effectiveness of the environmental intervention of the Inner-City Asthma Study. Methods: Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios for a 2-year study period were calculated. Health outcome was measured as symptom-free days. Resource use measures included ambulatory visits, hospitalizations, and pharmaceutical use. CIs were obtained by using bootstrapping. Results: The intervention, which cost $1469 per family, led to statistically significant reductions in symptom days, unscheduled clinic visits, and use of β-agonist inhalers. Over the year of the intervention and a year of follow-up, the intervention cost was $27.57 per additional symptom-free day (95% CI, $7.46-$67.42). Subgroup analysis showed that targeting the intervention to selected high-risk subgroups did not reduce the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio. Conclusions: A targeted home-based environmental intervention improved health and reduced service use in inner-city children with moderate-to-severe asthma. The intervention is cost-effective when the aim is to reduce asthma symptom days and the associated costs.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1058-1063 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology |
Volume | 116 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 2005 |
Keywords
- Allergen mitigation
- Asthma
- Asthma intervention
- Cost-effectiveness
- Inner city
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Immunology and Allergy
- Immunology