Cost-effectiveness of falls prevention strategies for older adults: protocol for a living systematic review

One-third of adults aged 65+ fall annually. Injuries from falls can be devastating for individuals and account for 1.5% of annual healthcare spending. With the growing ageing population, falls place increased strain on scarce health resources. Prevention strategies that target individuals at high risk for falls demonstrate the best value for money; however, limited efficiency (ie, cost-effectiveness) information for fall prevention interventions hinders the implementation of effective falls prevention programmes. Living systematic reviews provide a timely up-to-date evidence-based resource to inform clinical guidelines and health policy decisions. This protocol details the methodology for a living systematic review of the efficiency (ie, cost-effectiveness) of fall prevention interventions for older adults in three settings: community-dwelling, aged care and hospitals.

This protocol used the reporting guidelines from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Protocol. Peer-reviewed economic evaluations of controlled clinical trials or health state models will be included. Reports will be obtained through monthly systematic searches of CENTRAL (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), Embase (Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid), SCOPUS (Elsevier) and Web of Science (Clarivate) alongside snowballing and handsearching EconLit and the Tufts Cost Effectivness Analysis Registry. Screening, data extraction, quality assessment and risk of bias will be assessed by multiple reviewers. The primary outcomes will be the incremental cost-effectiveness (ie, incremental cost per fall prevented), incremental cost-utility (ie, incremental cost per quality-adjusted life year gained) or cost-benefit ratio. Additional outcomes will include falls and cost-related measures. All economic outcomes will be reported in a common year and currency. Results will be reported as a narrative synthesis; meta-analysis will be considered based on data quality, suitability and availability.

Ethical approval is not required as primary human data will not be collected. Results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and a dedicated website.

CRD42024532485.