Making HPV vaccines efficient: Cost-effectiveness analysis and the economic assemblage of healthcare in Colombia Academic Article

journal

  • Science and Technology Studies

abstract

  • Cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) is a strategy of calculation whose main objective is to compare for making decisions about the best, the most efficient solution (costs vs. benefits) to a particular problem. Cost-effectiveness analysis not only provides a framework to compare healthcare interventions which in practice seem incommensurable; it also performs a set of assumptions regarding the nature of healthcare and the behaviour of individuals. This article analyses the role of CEA as a device to produce value in the introduction of HPV vaccines in Colombia. In the different institutional pathways and decision-making scenarios cost-effectiveness has been the key issue that justified the inclusions and the exclusions that such technology entails. Cost-effectiveness has justified the definition of girls as the population target and the exclusion of boys from risks and benefits of this technology. Moreover, cost-effectiveness analysis has been a key instrument in the sexualising and de-sexualising of cervical cancer and HPV vaccines through the rationalisation of economic benefit.

publication date

  • 2017-1-1

edition

  • 31

keywords

  • Assemblages
  • Boys
  • Cervical Cancer
  • Colombia
  • Cost-effectiveness
  • Costs
  • Decision Making
  • Economics
  • Exclusion
  • Healthcare
  • Inclusion
  • Pathway
  • Rationalization
  • Scenarios
  • Vaccine

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2243-4690