Open AccessPreventing the Wernicke‐Korsakoff syndrome in Australia: cost‐effectiveness of thiamin‐supplementation alternatives
Author(s) -
Connelly Luke,
Price John
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of public health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.946
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1753-6405
pISSN - 1326-0200
DOI - 10.1111/j.1753-6405.1996.tb01814.x
Subject(s) - thiamine , wernicke encephalopathy , thiamine deficiency , medicine , encephalopathy , cost effectiveness , pediatrics , environmental health , intensive care medicine , psychiatry , risk analysis (engineering)
Alcoholic Wernicke's encephalopathy has been commonplace in Australia for many years and, as this syndrome is attributed to a deficiency in the diet, it should be preventable. This study employs conventional cost‐effectiveness methodology to compare the economic efficiency of several thiamin‐supplementation alternatives that have been proposed for the prevention of Wernicke's encephalopathy. A series of rankings of these measures is derived from an estimated cost per case averted for each of the alternatives studied. These rankings identify the least cost‐effective thiamin‐supplementation alternative as that of enriching bread‐making flour with thiamin.