Strategic Methodologies in Public Health Cost Analyses

Area of Science:

• Public Health Services and Systems Research
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Determining the cost of public health services is crucial for effective communication with decision-makers.
• Accurate cost data is needed to support financial requests and advocate for public health initiatives.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the accuracy of manager estimates versus employee activity logs for public health cost estimation.
• To assess the feasibility of using manager surveys as a less burdensome alternative to activity logs.

Main Methods:

• Employees in Colorado local health departments used activity logs for two weeks to record time spent on communicable disease surveillance.
• Managers estimated employee time using surveys.
• Regression analysis was used to compare manager estimates with employee-recorded times.

Main Results:

• Most models indicated managers underestimated employee time, particularly for less time-consuming tasks.
• Manager surveys were more accurate for estimating time spent on broad activities or core services.
• Precision decreased when managers estimated time for discrete, specific activities.

Conclusions:

• Manager surveys can provide a reasonably accurate approximation of public health service costs.
• This method is more efficient than activity logs, reducing practitioner time investment.
• Manager estimates are valuable for cost studies when precision for discrete tasks is not paramount.