Theoretically, measures of household wealth can be reflected by income, consumption or expenditure information. However, the collection of accurate income and consumption data requires extensive resources for household surveys. Given the increasingly routine application of principal components analysis (PCA) using asset data in creating socio-economic status (SES) indices, we review how PCA-based indices are constructed, how they can be used, and their validity and limitations. Specifically, issues related to choice of variables, data preparation and problems such as data clustering are addressed. Interpretation of results and methods of classifying households into SES groups are also discussed. PCA has been validated as a method to describe SES differentiation within a population. Issues related to the underlying data will affect PCA and this should be considered when generating and interpreting results.

Objectives: To estimate the cost effectiveness of on-site antenatal syphilis screening and treatment in Mwanza, Tanzania. To compare this intervention with other antenatal and child health interventions, specifically the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT). Methods: The economic costs of adding the intervention to routine antenatal care were assessed. Cost effectiveness (CE) ratios of the intervention were obtained for low birth weight (LBW) live births and stillbirths averted and cost per DALY saved. Cost per DALY saved was also estimated for previous CE studies of syphilis screening. The CE of the intervention at different syphilis prevalence rates was modelled.

There are differences in timing related to when costs of certain inputs are incurred and when they are used over the lifetime of a programme. This paper looks at the issues related to the comparison of cost data over time focusing on discounting and annualization adjustments, which are used by economists to calculate financial and economic costs. The process of discounting is used to deal with the notion of time preference. Time preference implies that future costs are worth less, and hence discounted more, to reflect individual and societal preferences to have resources and money now rather than in the future. While discounting is appropriate in many situations, it is also useful to compute an annual equivalent cost when recurrent costs of an intervention are incurred, or are expected to be incurred, in subsequent years. This approach has the added benefit of illustrating how capital items are actually used during the lifetime of an intervention. This paper presents methods to both discount and annualize costs, and discusses rules-of-thumb to decide when to make these adjustments.

Circumcision is a cost-saving intervention in a wide range of scenarios of HIV and initial circumcision prevalence but the United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS/WHO recommended target age group should be widened to include older HIV-uninfected men and counselling should be targeted at both newly and already circumcised men to minimize risk compensation. To maximize infections-averted, circumcision must be scaled up rapidly while maintaining quality.

The study revealed low sales of antibiotics without prescription, showing good adherence to the letter of the law. However, few respondents performed acceptably in relation to guidelines when considering information and advice for the tracer conditions.