Context: Because human and financial resources are limited, health efforts must focus on prevention strategies that yield the most benefit for the investment. Many current strategies identified in the literature offer opportunities to promote health at a reasonable cost.
Objective: To present a literature-based review of evidence demonstrating that prevention can be an effective and wise use of resources through CDC's An Ounce of Prevention ... What Are the Returns? Second Edition.
Design: Systematic review of cost-effectiveness literature for a selected group of prevention strategies.
Setting: Prevention strategies relevant to the U.S. population.
Results: Data indicate that the health conditions considered can be addressed through prevention strategies that are either cost effective or cost saving.
Conclusions: An Ounce of Prevention ... What Are the Returns? Second Edition can be used to conveniently access information on prevention strategies, the diseases and injuries they address, and their cost effectiveness. It also complements other comprehensive prevention guides. However, limitations of the available cost-effectiveness studies indicate that standardized procedures should be followed for studies of all recommended prevention strategies. Researchers must standardize review procedures to improve both the quality and comparability of studies.