Helping to prioritise interventions for depression and schizophrenia: use of Population Impact Measures

Can health indicators help policy-makers? Experience from European system of urban health indicators (EURO-URHIS)

Background

This paper proposes that Population Impact Measures (PIMs), the Population Impact Number of Eliminating a Risk Factor over a time period (PIN-ER-t) and the number of events prevented in your population (NEPP), can assist in policy making as they include relevant information which describes the impact or benefits to the population of risk factors and interventions. In this study, we explore the utilization of the indicators from European System of Urban Health Indicators System to produce the two PIMs. We identified from the indicators list the health determinants, health status and health interventions which can be linked, and searched Medline for evidence of association. We then investigated whether the type of frequency measure available for the indicator match with the measure used in PIMs, and explored data availability for the City of Manchester (UK) as an urban area. Of the 39 indicators relevant to socio-economic factors, health determinants and health status, it was possible to calculate the population impact of a risk factor, i.e. the PIN-ER-t, for only six associations, and the population impact of health interventions, i.e. NEPP, for only one out of the three listed indicators, as the relevant health conditions were not included. The results of this study suggest that if an indicator system is intended to play a part in the policy making process, then the method of presentation to policy-makers should be decided before setting up the system, as it is likely that some indicators which would be essential might not be available.

A review on schizophrenia and relapse--a quest for user-friendly psychopharmacotherapy

OBJECTIVE

Schizophrenia in general is notoriously associated with relapses rendering the illness progressive to worse outcomes, a concept of which is compatible with neurotoxicity. Therefore, relapse prevention is of utmost clinical relevance.

METHODS

In this review, we aim to put relapse into clinical context in the realm of natural history of, or heterogeneity in, schizophrenia and summarize risk factors of relapse. We discuss how to effectively 'define' relapse in schizophrenia and recent meta-analytic studies on this topic to highlight the importance of continuous antipsychotic treatment.

RESULTS

The following issues emerged: 'How low maintenance antipsychotic dosage could be?’, 'How extended dosing could be?’, 'Who could be successfully withdrawn from antipsychotics?’ and 'How relapse could be defined in the first place?’ The question in particular is how better to deliver antipsychotics at the lowest possible, whereby dose and dosing interval are relevant. While ongoing antipsychotic treatment is the rule, recent works are pointing to a possibility of lower dosage in the maintenance phase of the illness.

CONCLUSIONS

Bearing in mind that suboptimal adherence and withdrawal from antipsychotics are an established and unequivocal risk factor for relapse, further investigations are certainly needed to explore user-friendly manner of psychopharmacotherapy to prevent relapse in schizophrenia.

The use of epidemiological measures to estimate the impact of primary prevention interventions on CHD, stroke and cancer outcomes: experiences from Herefordshire, UK

Background: CHD, stroke and cancers are the major causes of mortality in the UK and are responsible for significant amounts of morbidity and healthcare costs. This study examines the proportion of CHD, stroke and cancer owing to specific risk factors in Herefordshire, UK. It estimates the population impact of a number of interventions being implemented to reduce these risk factors, through the NHS Health Check program and the Herefordshire Health Improvement Plan. The present study also aims to demonstrate the value of epidemiological measures in providing evidence-based public health information in policy-making to aid decision makers when prioritizing investments and optimal use of resources.

Methods: The epidemiological measures–‘Population Attributable Risk’ and ‘Population Impact Measures’–were used to assess the impact of interventions to reduce the burden of CHD, stroke and cancer.

Results: Implementation of the NHS Health Check program will prevent 63 CHD events, 90 MI events and 125 stroke events, and one lung cancer over a period of 5 years. Reducing specific risk factors by 5% annually through the Health Improvement Plan will prevent 65 CHD events, 25 MI events, 140 stroke events, four lung cancer, one breast cancer and four colorectal cancer cases in Herefordshire if targets are met over a period of 5 years.

Conclusion: Physical inactivity and obesity are the major causes of CHD and stroke events (incidence and mortality) in Herefordshire. Their impact is greater than the combined effect of hypercholesterolemia and hypertension.

Epidemiological measures used in this study proved to be excellent tools in providing evidence-based public health information. Their use is strongly recommended to support prioritization of primary prevention interventions.

Potential population impact of changes in heroin treatment and smoking prevalence rates: using Population Impact Measures

BACKGROUND

The drug misuse and asthma are major health problems in urban settings. There are effective interventions to reduce cigarette smoking and also to treat heroin use; in the context of European System of Urban Health Indicators Project (EURO-URHIS), we explored the use of Population Impact Measures (PIMs) to describe the potential for increase in methadone use and reduction in cigarette smoking to reduce deaths -from heroin use- and asthma events in examples of urban populations.

METHODS

The two PIMs calculated here are the Number of Events Prevented in your Population (NEPP) and the Population Impact Number of Eliminating (or reducing the prevalence of) a Risk Factor (PIN-ER-t).

RESULTS

Increasing methadone treatment uptake from its current levels to 90% would prevent 21 (95% CI: 11-34) deaths in Manchester City, 218 (95% CI: 114-339) in Greater London and overall 1 243 (95% CI: 641-1953) in England in 1 year. In males 2 (95% CI: -22 to 28), 27 (95% CI: -296 to 363) and 170 (95% CI: -1757 to 2186) and in females 36 (95% CI: 6-70), 0 and 2312 (95% CI: 934-3783) fewer asthma cases per year would have been expected in Manchester City, Greater London and overall in England respectively, if the smoking prevalence is reduced from current levels to 20% in both sexes.

CONCLUSIONS

PIMs provide estimates of absolute risk and benefit to a total population, of potential use to policy-makers since current practice and intervention goals are taken into account.

What are the benefits of cognitive enhancers for Alzheimer's Disease: use of Population Impact Measures

Background

The study aims to quantify the population impact of prescribing cholinesterase inhibitors to slow the cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to compare with the benefit of treating hypertension to prevent the onset of AD.

Methods

Literature review to ascertain the prevalence of AD, benefits of interventions, analysis of local and national surveys to measure the current use of interventions in the relevant population and application of the relevant findings to calculate Population Impact Measures. The Number of Events Prevented in a Population (NEPP) by the intervention over a defined time period is calculated for a UK urban population in one Local Authority (population size 217,000).

Results

Treatment of all eligible patients with mild to moderate AD with Cholinesterase Inhibitors would prevent cognitive deterioration (measured by ADAS – cog scale) in 123.6 (95% Confidence Intervals (CI) 82.3, 169.1), 16.4 (95% CI 2.1, 31.2) would show a mild improvement (4 points or more on the ADAS – cog scale) and 2.6 (95% CI 0.2, 5.8) would show an improvement of 7 points or more over a period of 6 months. This would require the treatment of 406 patients with Cholinesterase Inhibitors.

Increasing from the current treatment rate of 46% of eligible patients to 'best practice' level would prevent cognitive deterioration in 66.8 (95% CI 44.0, 92.6), 8.99 (95% CI 1.2, 16.8) and 1.4 (95% CI 0.11, 3.2) would improve by 4 and 7 points respectively on the ADAS – cog scale over 6 months. This would require the treatment of an extra 187 patients with Cholinesterase Inhibitors beyond current practice, at an additional annual direct drug cost of £187,000.

Improving the treatment of hypertension from current practice by 20% could prevent 8.2 (95% CI 2.3, 16.8) incident cases of AD in the next year. This would require the treatment of an extra 2711 patients with antihypertensive drugs.

Conclusion

Population Impact Measures are a new method to allow a demonstration of the magnitude of the benefit for the whole population following interventions. The use of drugs to slow cognitive decline, or to prevent AD by treating hypertension, can thus be assessed in a prioritisation exercise in competition with alternative use of resources.