Estimated effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of federally funded prevention efforts on gonorrhea rates in the United States, 1971-2003, under various assumptions about the impact of prevention funding.

BACKGROUND: Reported gonorrhea incidence rates in the United States declined by 75% from 1975 to 2003 after implementation of a federally funded gonorrhea control program in the mid-1970s. The purpose of this study was to (1) estimate national gonorrhea rates that might have occurred from 1971 to 2003 had there been no federally funded sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention activities and (2) calculate crude estimates of the cost-effectiveness of these prevention activities.
METHODS: Hypothetical gonorrhea rates had there been no federally funded prevention efforts from 1971 to 2003 were estimated based on (1) the amount of federal funding allocated to state and local health departments for STD prevention and (2) a published estimate of the impact of funding on STD rates in the United States. Standard methods of cost-effectiveness analysis were used to calculate the cost per case of gonorrhea prevented.
RESULTS: Under base case assumptions about the impact of prevention funding on gonorrhea rates drawn from a published study, prevention efforts were cost saving, meaning that the program costs were less than the averted costs of treating gonorrhea and its associated sequelae. Over the 33-year period, an estimated 32 million cases of gonorrhea were averted by prevention efforts.
CONCLUSION: STD prevention efforts appeared to be cost saving when considering only the benefits of gonorrhea prevention. If other benefits were considered (such as the prevention of other STDs), the estimated effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of STD prevention in the United States would be even greater.