What is Prevention Effectiveness?

Prevention effectiveness is the systematic assessment of the impact of public health policies, programs, and practices on health outcomes. Econometric, decision, simulation, and operations modeling and methods are employed to determine the efficacy, effectiveness, efficiency, and cost of public health services, policies, and interventions. Prevention effectiveness research facilitates better decision-making about the allocation of resources around programmatic priorities.

Prevention effectiveness uses economic evaluation, policy analysis, and decision modeling to assess the impact of public health interventions and programs. At CDC, prevention effectiveness methods are used to explain 

• Health-related burden and costs
• Effectiveness and efficiency of health protection, health promotion, and disease prevention programs
• Health program prioritization based on optimization modeling
• Disease transmission and intervention modeling
• Health system performance