Saving Lives while Saving Millions: Missouri Measures the Economic Impact of Public Health
Success StoriesWe’ve all heard the adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is taking that one step further by calculating just how much that ounce is worth, in terms of dollars and lives saved. With support from the Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG), the department is evaluating its programs through both an economic and health impact lens.
In this video, John Fieno, Health Economist with the department, explains how PHIG funding made it possible to rigorously assess which programs deliver the greatest return on investment for Missouri. By hiring a dedicated health economist, Missouri is identifying which strategies are most effective and cost-efficient, providing clear evidence to guide existing and future public health investments in the state. Thus far, it’s clear that public health programs pay off – for example, the data shows that Missouri’s HIV prevention services are saving lives and saving the state hundreds of millions of dollars over time.
Video Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
How have you been able to use PHIG funding?
My role with the Department of Health and Senior Services in Missouri is to help the department with the economic evaluation of its programs, to assess the cost, identify the benefits, and basically to determine if the juice is worth the squeeze.
The Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) has allowed us in Missouri to seriously perform rigorous economic evaluation of many of our programs, which was missing previously, and now we can do that, and now we can identify for our stakeholders, not only the cost, but also the relative effectiveness of what we’re doing and showing that what we’re doing makes sense. Not only does it make sense, but it is also effective; it saves lives and saves money too.
What does that look like in Missouri?
We’ve identified premature death as being a real epidemic in the United States. Americans die prematurely at a rate double of our European neighbors. Missouri, actually, among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, is ranked 39th in premature death, and for African-Americans, we’re actually 47th. So we’ve written an article basically highlighting this and showing that state investment in public health has a positive effect on reducing premature death among all groups, but especially for African-Americans. So in other words, for every dollar spent by state government in public health, it reduces premature death among African-American people by 60 years, whereas for whites it’s only 25. We think it’s an important finding and hope to publish it very soon. It’s in process right now.
We have some interesting projects. We have one on the cost-effectiveness of GLP-1s – this is with our colleagues at MO HealthNet, our Medicaid program. We also have another project, which is going to be a bit longer, but it is going to look at that premature death data and the economic cost to Missouri. So what we’re trying to do is not only identify cost-effective programs, but also identify the cost of our failed actions. And I think that’s really important.
What cost-savings have you already seen in Missouri?
Our HIV prevention services in the state reduce the number of infections yearly. Preventing those infections saves the health system—and the state of Missouri—millions of dollars over time. The HIV prevention efforts in the state of Missouri not only save lives but also save hundreds of millions of dollars.
Why is this funding so important?
An investment in public health and public health infrastructure gives a platform for public health departments to implement their activities, whether it be dealing with obesity, sexually transmitted infections, environmental health, health equity, all those issues. This Public Health Infrastructure Grant creates a platform to allow health departments to do that important work.