Economic evaluation of the Healthy Early Life Moments in Singapore (HELMS) programme: a study protocol for an integrated lifestyle intervention supported by a mobile health tool for mothers and children in Singapore
Kyaw Zay Ya, Chee Wai Ku, See Ling Loy, Annabel Ngien, Kai Ting Mok, Mei Chien Chua, Fabian Yap, Jerry Kok Yen Chan, Elizabeth MartinIntroduction
The Healthy Early Life Moments in Singapore (HELMS) programme was developed by a multidisciplinary team to improve metabolic and mental health outcomes in women/mothers and to promote healthy growth and development in their children. Despite increasing interest in preventive life-course care, evidence on the long-term economic impact of these life-course interventions remains limited. This protocol outlines the economic evaluation of the HELMS integrated lifestyle intervention, supported by a mobile health (mHealth) app, across the reproductive continuum from preconception to postpartum.
Methods and analysis
The HELMS programme is conducted at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, recruiting overweight or obese women and planning to conceive. The economic evaluation comprises a within-trial costing study and a cost-effectiveness analysis. We will develop a Markov model for mothers and children to simulate maternal-child health outcomes over a 10-year horizon from the healthcare provider’s perspective. Primary data will be sourced from the HELMS programme and supplemented by local mother–child cohorts and published literature. The cost analysis will include direct medical, direct non-medical and programme-related costs incurred through the HELMS intervention. We will measure health outcomes in quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) using the EuroQol-5 Dimension utility scores. We will conduct both deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses to assess model uncertainty. The evaluation will estimate total and incremental costs, QALYs and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios for HELMS versus standard care. We will present cost-effectiveness acceptability curves and perform subgroup analyses to explore heterogeneity by maternal age, ethnicity and body mass index. A willingness-to-pay threshold appropriate for the Singapore context, based on recently published estimates, will be used to determine cost-effectiveness. We will also identify key cost drivers and examine the intervention’s scalability.
Ethics and dissemination
The study has been approved by the Centralised Institutional Review Board of SingHealth (2021/2247). Written informed consent will be obtained from all participants. The findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals and disseminated to international and national policy makers.
Trial registration number