Best practice in estimating the costs of alcohol: recommendations for future studies

ABSTRACT

This report aims to summarize best practice in estimating the attributable and avoidable costs of alcohol,and to make recommendations for making such estimates in future studies. It discusses the conceptualbasis for such cost studies, and then goes through the conceptual and methodological challenges for eachtype of cost in turn. It recommends (i) changes in the terminology used; (ii) the consistent and explicitconsideration of ‘external’ costs (i.e. costs to others); (iii) more sophisticated modelling of the effect ofpolicy interventions on costs; (iv) more robust attempts to quantify alcohol’s causal effect on harms andcosts; (v) a demonstration project using new methodologies; (vi) the use of scenarios rather than existingsensitivity analyses; (vii) importing data from other studies rather than simply missing out certain types ofcost; (viii) taking account of future health and resource costs; and (ix) not using the ‘human capital’method for valuing the labour costs of premature mortality within the main estimates.