More information on the rationale, activities, and goals of WHO-CHOICE

The CHOICE (CHOosing Interventions that are Cost-Effective) project is a WHO initiative developed in 1998 with the objective of providing policy makers with the evidence for deciding on the interventions and programmes which maximize health for the available resources. To achieve this, WHO-CHOICE reports the costs and effects of a wide range of health interventions in the 14 epidemiological sub-regions (world divisions made based on geographical location and epidemiological profiles). The results of these cost-effectiveness analysis are assembled in regional databases, which policy makers can adapt to their specific country setting.

Objectives of WHO-CHOICE

• Develop a standardized method for cost effectiveness analysis that can be applied to all interventions in different settings
• Develop and disseminate tools required to assess intervention costs and impacts at the population level
• Determine the costs and effectiveness of a wide range of health interventions, conducted with probabilistic uncertainty analysis
• Summarize the results in regional databases that will be available on the Internet
• Assist policy makers and other stakeholders to interpret and use the evidence
• Develop country contextualisation tools

• Why is Cost Effectiveness Analysis important?
• Why is it necessary to compare a wide variety of health interventions?
• Why do we need regional databases on intervention cost-effectiveness?
• Can analysts adapt the estimates to their own settings?
• What is the added value of WHO-CHOICE?