Discuss the importance of sustainability for public health programs. Describe the
importance of a cost-benefit analysis. Discuss the cost-benefit analysis of your program in
regard to sustainability.
Sustainability and Cost-Benefit Analysis
Sustainability
The absence of sustainability measures in a public health program would lead to challenges in
the successful implementation of the various interventions. As such, sustainability is essential in
the implementation of public health program as it boosts the understanding of the long-term
effects due to the continuous and regular maintenance over extended periods. For instance, in an
intervention such as the effects of behavioral change in the obesity incidence among adolescents,
the results are obtained after the implementation of the program. Therefore, sustainability would
facilitate the determination of such effects before implementing the program, thereby leading to
the evaluation of its effectiveness and the identification of areas that need changes (Walugembe,
Sibbald, Le Ber, & Kothari, 2019). Besides, sustainability facilitates the determination of the
changes in the program during the latency period. These are followed closely by the requirement
to consider the potential loss on investments for the relevant stakeholders that the intervention
with perceived or actual benefits is not sustained.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
As a fundamental type of economic evaluation, cost-benefit analysis facilitates the
appraisal of a public health program through the determination of the relative efficiency that will
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be obtained. It further contributes to the identification, measurement, and comparison of the
various activities carried out through emphasis on the desired scale, outcome, and sustenance
necessary for optimizing patient health. The attainment of these goals thus occurs through the
evaluation and comparison of different health interventions seeking to address one issue in
public health (Rabarison, Bish, Massoudi, & Giles, 2015). More precisely, it involves examining
the costs incurred in acquiring the inputs as well as the potential results obtained, thereby leading
to the identification of a suitable approach or intervention that should be implemented.
As such, the cost-benefit analysis for the reduction of obesity among adolescents’
intervention about sustainability would involve the estimation of the costs incurred in the two
programs as well as the monetary value of the benefits obtained (Walugembe, Sibbald, Le Ber, &
Kothari, 2019). Besides, the cost-benefit analysis of the program with regards to sustainability
would involve the adoption of the normalization process theory (NPT) that focuses on
understanding and explaining the social processes for the operationalization of new or modified
practices.
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References
Rabarison, K. M., Bish, C. L., Massoudi, M. S., & Giles, W. H. (2015). Economic Evaluation
Enhances Public Health Decision Making. Frontiers in Public Health, 3.
Walugembe, D. R., Sibbald, S., Le Ber, M. J., & Kothari, A. (2019). Sustainability of public
health interventions: where are the gaps? Health Research Policy and Systems, 17(1).