Abstract:
The costs of injury are of obvious importance for the
purposes of priority setting in prevention planning by
policy makers and stakeholders in general. The economic
costs of injury and death have been the focus of
considerable international attention in recent years.
Localisation of these studies and their methods to the
South African injury context, however, remains largely
underdeveloped. The costing of fatal and non-fatal
injuries in South Africa consists of a number of initiatives
undertaken by various segments of both the
public and private sectors. This article will review the
existing literature devoted to the estimation of costs in
various sectors of the South African morbidity and
mortality contexts, with a view to illustrating the manner
in which this information informed both provisional
processes and structure for the implementation of a
nationwide South African injury costing project. The
literature is examined across three primary dimensions:
the precise object of the study, the method
employed in the costing of that object, and the sample
coverage of the method.
The findings of the review indicated a number of significant
entry-points for the development of a local
South African costing model. A preponderance of
direct medical costing, significantly discrepant expenditure
figures between the public and private health care
systems and blurring of distinct costing concepts are
problematic themes throughout the review of the literature.
This article illustrates the manner in which the
identification of the problems and promises of these
existing costing studies informed the sites, injury types
and methodology selected for development and implementation
of a National South African Injury
Costing Project.
