Which evaluation would report cost per unit of health outcome such as lives saved or disability days avoided?

• A. Cost-benefit analysis
• B. Cost-effectiveness analysis
• C. Cost-utility analysis
• D. Cost-consequence analysis

Answer: (B)

The key idea is measuring how much an intervention costs for each unit of health benefit it delivers. Cost-effectiveness analysis does exactly that by linking costs to health outcomes expressed in natural units, like lives saved or disability days avoided. This format lets you see, for example, how many dollars are needed to save one life or to avert one day of disability, making comparisons straightforward when the outcomes are the same across options. If the outcome were monetized, you’d be looking at cost-benefit analysis; if the outcome were a utility-adjusted measure like a QALY, it would be cost-utility analysis; and if results were shown as multiple outcomes without a single ratio, that would be cost-consequence.