The Estimated Impact of Implementing a Funding Allocation Formula on the Number of Gonorrhea Cases in the United States, 2014 to 2018

An Interactive Modeling Tool for Projecting the Health and Direct Medical Cost Impact of Changes in the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Prevention Program Budgets

CONTEXT

Estimating the return on investment for public health services, tailored to the state level, is critical for demonstrating their value and making resource allocation decisions. However, many health departments have limited staff capacity and expertise to conduct economic analyses in-house.

PROGRAM

We developed a user-friendly, interactive Excel-based spreadsheet model that health departments can use to estimate the impact of increases or decreases in sexually transmitted infection (STI) prevention funding on the incidence and direct medical costs of chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, and STI-attributable HIV infections. Users tailor results to their jurisdictions by entering the size of their population served; the number of annual STI diagnoses; their prior annual funding amount; and their anticipated new funding amount. The interface was developed using human-centered design principles, including focus groups with 15 model users to collect feedback on an earlier model version and a usability study on the prototype with 6 model users to finalize the interface.

IMPLEMENTATION

The STI Prevention Allocation Consequences Estimator ("SPACE Monkey 2.0") model will be publicly available as a free downloadable tool.

EVALUATION

In the usability testing of the prototype, participants provided overall positive feedback. They appreciated the clear interpretations, outcomes expressed as direct medical costs, functionalities to interact with the output and copy charts into external applications, visualization designs, and accessible information about the model's assumptions and limitations. Participants provided positive responses to a 10-item usability evaluation survey regarding their experiences with the prototype.

DISCUSSION

Modeling tools that synthesize literature-based estimates and are developed with human-centered design principles have the potential to make evidence-based estimates of budget changes widely accessible to health departments.

Estimating the Association Between Public Health Spending and Sexually Transmitted Disease Rates in the United States: A Systematic Review

ABSTRACT

Public health spending is important for managing increases in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States. Although previous studies suggest that a beneficial link exists between public health spending and changes in STD rates, there have been no systematic reviews synthesizing existing evidence regarding the association for STDs at the population level. The objective of this study was to synthesize evidence from studies that assessed the associations between general and STD-specific public health spending and STD rates. We conducted a systematic review using Ovid-Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and EconLit for relevant studies that examined the association between public health spending and gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, and chancroid rates following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. A total of 5 articles (2 regarding general public health spending and 3 regarding STD-specific public health spending) met our inclusion criteria. There was a significant decrease in gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, and chancroid rates associated with increased public health spending. We also found that STD-specific public health spending has a greater effect on STD rates compared with general public health spending. Our review provides evidence that increases in general and STD-specific public health spending are associated with a reduction of STD rates. Such research regarding estimates of the impact of STD prevention spending can help policy makers identify priority funding areas and inform health resource allocation decisions.