Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Movement and Sport Sciences, Brussel, Belgium (Mr Lutz, Dr Deliens, Dr Clarys, Dr Taeymans); Bern University of Applied Sciences – Health, Bern Switzerland (Mr Lutz, Dr Taeymans); Ghent University - Faculty of medicine, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Interuniversity Centre for Health Economics Research (I-CHER), Ghent, Belgium (Dr Verhaeghe).
Address correspondence to: Nathanael Lutz, MSc, cand. PhD, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussel, Belgium ([email protected])
Ethics approval and consent to participate: All participants provided informed consent before any study-related activities. The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee (Commissie Medische Ethiek, Vrije Universiteit Brussel: B.U.N 143201733191).
Funding: None.
Lutz, Deliens, Clarys, Verhaeghe, and Taeymans have no relationships/conditions/circumstances that present potential conflict of interest.
The JOEM editorial board and planners have no financial interest related to this research.
Availability of data and material: All data supporting the results of this study are included in this published article and its supplementary materials (Appendix A–G).
Guidelines followed for reporting: Consolidated health economic evaluation reporting standards (CHEERS) [16].
Authors’ contributions: The manuscript is approved by all authors. NL: Protocol, questionnaires, data collection, data analysis, consensus discussions, writing and preparing manuscript. TD: Protocol, questionnaires, data collection, writing and preparing manuscript. PC: Protocol, consensus discussions, writing, and preparing manuscript. NV: Consensus discussions, writing and preparing manuscript. JT: Protocol, questionnaires, data analysis, consensus discussions, writing and preparing manuscript.
Clinical significance: In the base-case, the influenza vaccination program (IVP) was less effective and more expensive. Like in many evaluations of real-world settings, lack of randomization may have caused selection bias which may explain the surprising results. When applying a sensitivity analysis using published estimates of vaccine-effectiveness, the IVP became cost-effective.
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