Cost-efficiency estimate: 0.78 NS in Headache Disability Inventory (HDI) or Beck Depression Inventory (BDI).
For example, we have recently reported cost-efficiency estimates for HIV voluntary counselling and testing in Andhra Pradesh [ 14].
The outputs and cost-efficiency estimates of HIV prevention programmes for sex workers from India can be compared with similar estimates from other countries in the PANCEA study using similar methodology.
The cost-efficiency estimates presented in this paper could be used to estimate the resources needed for STI care by the public health care system in Andhra Pradesh, and these data also point to some issues which, if addressed, could lead to enhancement in the provision of these services and also their cost-efficiency.
However, it may not be unreasonable to assume that the cost-efficiency estimates of public sector STI care apply to those who are at most risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV, and therefore, are important for assessing and comparing the cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the various HIV prevention strategies.
Standardised comparisons of cost-efficiency estimates for HIV prevention services are needed across countries and across the different types of prevention in the background of the considerable attention recently to estimating the resources needed for HIV control, which would enable more firm local and global estimates for planning.
Such standardised cross-country and country-specific cost-efficiency estimates would be very useful in estimating the resources needed for HIV control in specific countries as well as globally with more confidence than has been possible so far with the available data.
The outputs, cost and efficiency estimates, relationship of efficiency with scale, and the unit incremental costs for each of the major activities of the sex worker programmes, presented in this paper could be useful for planning sex worker programmes and estimating the resources needed by them in Andhra Pradesh and other states in India.
These cost and efficiency estimates of STI treatment could also be used to estimate cost-effectiveness of STI treatment for HIV prevention in India either by using published estimates of effectiveness from other parts of the world or by conducting studies on effectiveness of STI treatment in preventing HIV in India.
The outputs, cost and efficiency estimates reported in this paper for the truck driver programmes in this Indian state could be useful for further planning of HIV prevention programmes for truck drivers and estimating the resources needed for such programmes.
For example, under the simple Tobit estimate example, the impact of increasing capital would predict a greater impact on cost efficiency than in the estimates using the bootstrap approach.
