The effect of different public health interventions on longevity, morbidity, and years of healthy life
2007

Impact of Public Health Interventions on Health and Longevity

publication Evidence: moderate

Author Information

Author(s): Paula Diehr, Ann Derleth, Liming Cai, Anne B. Newman

Primary Institution: University of Washington

Hypothesis

The HP/DP intervention would perform well, because prevention is the preferred strategy in public health.

Conclusion

Interventions that promote health and prevent disease performed well, but other types of intervention were sometimes better.

Supporting Evidence

  • A one-shot intervention that makes all sick persons healthy at baseline would increase life expectancy by 3 months.
  • Interventions aimed at keeping persons healthy increased longevity and years of healthy life.
  • Results differed for older and younger cohorts and depended on the value to society of an additional year of sick life.

Takeaway

This study looks at different ways to help people stay healthy and live longer, showing that some methods work better than others.

Methodology

Multi-state life table methods were used to estimate the impact of five types of interventions on mortality, morbidity, and years of healthy life.

Limitations

The interventions considered are unrealistic and may not affect only a single transition probability.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1186/1471-2458-7-52

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