Cost-utility analysis to control Campylobacter on chicken meat-dealing with data limitations

The current article describes the economic evaluation of interventions to control Campylobacter on chicken meat by means of a cost-utility analysis. Apart from the used, the main focus of this article is on data gaps and assumptions made, and their on results and conclusions. The direct intervention costs, the relative risk, the disease (expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)), and the costs of illness for the interventions are necessary inputs for the cost-utility analysis. The cost-utility ratio the measure for efficiency-is expressed in net costs per avoided DALY. Most data gaps of a biological order, but for some interventions, information on costs was also scarce. As consequence, assumptions had to be made, which had some impact on the estimated A higher (lower) incidence of Campylobacter infections associated with chicken meat, (lower) effectiveness, and lower (higher) intervention costs, respectively, would result in solute better (worse) CUR estimates. By taking the perspective of all consumers eating chicken meat, rather than only the Dutch society, absolute better CUR estimates could obtained. Indirect costs or a shift toward non-Dutch chicken meat would both result in CUR estimates. Despite the assumptions made, three interventions showed for most of applied sensitivity analyses relatively favorable CUR estimates: limiting fecal leakage processing, carcass decontamination by dipping in a chemical solution, and the phage However, all three do have some clauses.