Sunday Health Policy UpDate
April 2, 2006
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Aging And Inpatient Demand

Immunization Strategies

Rx Development Costs


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New postings and analysis from Health Affairs, the leading journal of health policy. Health Affairs publishes new research each week online at www.healthaffairs.org. For more information, contact Chris Fleming at 301-347-3944.

Study Dispels Myth That Aging Baby Boomers Justify Rapid Hospital Expansion
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.25.w141

Population aging will play a relatively small role in increasing demand for inpatient hospital care over the next decade, according to a study published March 28 as a Health Affairs Web Exclusive. Local population trends and medical technology advances will be far more important than population aging in forecasting community needs for additional inpatient hospital capacity, say researchers from the Center for Studying Health System Change.


Immunizing More Children Lowers Per Child Costs, Say Researchers
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/2/348

In the March/April Health Affairs, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health report on ways to increase immunization rates in poor countries. David Bishai and coauthors report that vaccination costs drop appreciably when immunizations cover a large group of children, with 1.5 million children offering the most efficient scale. Since few countries have that many children to immunize, the researchers suggest combining small countries' vaccination efforts into regional programs to reach a more economical scale.

Print editions of Health Affairs may be ordered for $35 each from Health Affairs' Customer Service at 301-347-3900 or online at www.healthaffairs.org/1330_issue.php.


Study: Drug Development Costs Average $868 Million But Vary Widely
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/2/420

In another article in the March/April Health Affairs, Christopher Adams and Van Branter of the Federal Trade Commission find the average cost of developing a new drug to be $868 million, slightly higher even than the much-debated $802 million estimate offered in 2003 by Joseph DiMasi and colleagues. However, the FTC authors also report wide variations in development costs, some attributable to strategic choices by drugmakers themselves.


ABOUT HEALTH AFFAIRS:

Health Affairs, published by Project HOPE, is the leading journal of health policy. The peer-reviewed journal appears bimonthly in print with additional online-only papers published weekly as Health Affairs Web Exclusives at www.healthaffairs.org. The full text of each Health Affairs Web Exclusive is available free of charge to all Web site visitors for a two-week period following posting, after which it switches to pay-per-view for nonsubscribers. The abstracts of all articles are free in perpetuity. Web Exclusives are supported in part by a grant from the Commonwealth Fund.

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