Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: A Societal Perspective on Evaluating Digital versus In-Person Diabetes Prevention Programs (Motivated by the Study by Park et al. on Digital and In-Person Interventions for Prediabetes in the United States)

This report presents a cost-effectiveness analysis of digital versus in-person diabetes prevention programs, emphasizing a societal perspective that integrates both healthcare and non-healthcare costs. Using the modeling study by Park et al. as a motivating example, the authors illustrate how including indirect costs—such as travel time, productivity losses, and informal care—provides a more comprehensive assessment of value. The analysis simulates outcomes over a ten-year horizon for adults with prediabetes, revealing that the digital program yields higher quality-adjusted life years (6.81 vs. 6.74) at a lower total cost ($20,000 vs. $24,600), resulting in a dominant cost-effectiveness profile. Disaggregated cost tables, sensitivity analyses, and probabilistic simulations consistently show that the digital intervention reduces societal burden while maintaining or improving health outcomes. The report underscores the importance of using a societal perspective in evaluating preventive health interventions, particularly for scalable, technology-enabled models. It also advocates for future research to improve data integration, model transparency, and the valuation of non-medical costs in economic evaluations.