A thought provoking question … this is not news to those who follow health policy but it is something that will surprise many people, including some health practitioners.
How can this be? The idea that prevention saves money feels intuitive. “When we think of prevention, we tend to think of the individual who benefited,” Russell writes. We conjure up an image of the woman who caught breast cancer early, averting expensive treatments, or the man who brought his weight down and lived a long, healthy life. That, however, discounts all the mammograms that didn’t detect cancer and didn’t prevent anything and all the individuals for whom weight management programs didn’t work. All those costs add up to the point that most preventive interventions cost more than they save.
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In her chapter, Russell also runs through what $1 million invested in a given treatment buys us in Quality Life Years. Investing $1 million in screening men over 55 for colon cancer would, according to the research, translate into a gain of 577 quality life years. Investing the same amount in cholesterol-lowering medications for high-risk, middle aged men would only translate into 12 additional quality life years. Not all preventive interventions, it turns out, are created equal.
