• Zachary Olson, John A Staples, Charles Mock, Nam Phuong Nguyen, Abdulgafoor M Bachani, Rachel Nugent, and Stéphane Verguet.
• School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
• Inj. Prev. 2016 Aug 1; 22 (4): 233-8.

BackgroundVietnam's 2007 comprehensive motorcycle helmet policy increased helmet use from about 30% of riders to about 93%. We aimed to simulate the effect that this legislation might have on: (a) road traffic deaths and non-fatal injuries, (b) individuals' direct acute care injury treatment costs, (c) individuals' income losses from missed work and (d) individuals' protection against medical impoverishment.Methods And FindingsWe used published secondary data from the literature to perform a retrospective extended cost-effectiveness analysis simulation study of the policy. Our model indicates that in the year following its introduction a helmet policy employing standard helmets likely prevented approximately 2200 deaths and 29 000 head injuries, saved individuals US$18 million in acute care costs and averted US$31 million in income losses. From a societal perspective, such a comprehensive helmet policy would have saved $11 000 per averted death or $830 per averted non-fatal injury. In terms of financial risk protection, traffic injury is so expensive to treat that any injury averted would necessarily entail a case of catastrophic health expenditure averted.ConclusionsThe high costs associated with traffic injury suggest that helmet legislation can decrease the burden of out-of-pocket payments and reduced injuries decrease the need for access to and coverage for treatment, allowing the government and individuals to spend resources elsewhere. These findings suggest that comprehensive motorcycle helmet policies should be adopted by low-income and middle-income countries where motorcycles are pervasive yet helmet use is less common.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

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