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The Future Of AIDS Prevention in Connecticut

My Three PlansWhy an IDU Plan?NEP PlanA Black Plan?Black PlanMy PlanHispanic Plan?Hispanic PlanConclusionSources

Costs of Bridgeport African American Intervention Plan
             Unfortunately, although such programs are often effective, they also have the potential to be costly. The WINGS intervention, for example, cost roughly $456 per participant, or $2,739 total (6). Furthermore, according to WINGS facilitators, the intervention “prevented an estimated .2195 new cases of HIV at a cost of $215,690 per care of HIV averted” (6), a rather high number per case. In total, the WINGS program included the “cost of rent for participant meeting spaces ($381), facilitator wages and training ($721), senior staff time for quality assurance ($110), recruitment ($208), client costs, which included incentive payments, child care and transportation compensation, and meals ($1161), and materials such as condoms, anatomic models, and information pamphlets ($159)” (6).

While these numbers may appear high, it is important for the Bridgeport Health Department to take notice of the cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY), the most common indicator of a cost-effective study. For the WINGS intervention, the cost per QALY was $31,851, under the $50,000 mark which dictates cost-effectiveness (6). Furthermore, such programs cost only $456 per person and have the potential to save at least 0.2195 lives, if not more (6). Compared to the “societal cost of HIV,” which is near to “$337,000 per case, [including] a lifetime of medical care costs and indirect costs such as lost economic productivity," $456 is a mere pittance.

 

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Regardless of potentially high costs, the successes of these various intervention programs are highly convincing. In the study of “Changes in Women’s Sexual Risk Behaviors after Therapeutic Community Treatment,” for example, the percentage of women who used condoms with their male partners most or all of the time increased from 8.6% to 43.5% (7). With the incredible amounts of supportive evidence, it is crucial that the Public Health Department of Bridgeport initiate an intervention series program that will not only help to educate the at-risk African American population, but will also serve to eliminate such service barriers as economic issues (no cost to participants), transportation, and a lack of cultural understanding.