HIV/AIDS home-based care costing guidelines

Given the diversity of interventions that may constitute HBC, it is critical to define the services and clarify the inputs that drive costs. The guidelines present costing principles that can be applied to HBC interventions, particularly at community level, to allow for comparable determinations of the cost of diverse HBC approaches and better inform efficiency options based on credible and comparable cost information. They then take users through a 10-step process in which they define the boundaries of an existing, expanding, or proposed HBC program; identify and quantify the resource requirements of that program; collect needed cost and other data; analyze the data in terms of total and unit costs; and apply the results. The guidelines are intended for use by HBC program managers and planners; policymakers also will benefit from analysis results. (Author abstract)