At The Crossroads, Part 5: The uncomfortable math of hep C treatment
Kristin Gourlay reported this story for Rhode Island Public Radio as a fellow in the 2014 National Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Additional parts to this series can be found here:
At The Crossroads, Part 1: A tale of two epidemics
At The Crossroads, Part 2: Finding hep C infections before it's too late
At The Crossroads, Part 3: As old hepatitis C treatment fades out, new treatments stoke hope
At The Crossroads, Part 4: New hep C drugs promise a cure, for a big price
Prescription drugs for hep C can be prohibitively expensive. (Auntie P/Flickr)
What’s the price of a human life? Many of us would say each life is priceless. But health economists sometimes have a number in mind.
Want to know what that number is?
In this part of our series “At the Crossroads: The Rise of Hepatitis C and The Fight To Stop It,” we'll tell you that - and more. We go beyond the high price of new hepatitis C drugs to ask: how much is too much? And what the heck is a "quality adjusted life year" anyway?
Morning producer John Bender pitches in to help answer those questions, and work through a little math problem.
How to figure out cost effectiveness from Kristin Gourlay on Vimeo.
This story was originally published by Rhode Island Public Radio.