(PLACEHOLDERS- old, unrevised)

Data extraction

xxxxx

Collation

Unit costs are those reported by the authors, and are listed in US dollars, unless only a local currency unit cost was available in the study. In the case where numerous unit costs are given, for example "cost per clinic visit" and "cost per STI syndrome treated", the unit cost closest to the "per-person" (and preferably "per person" completing the program/treatment) level was chosen to standardize the unit of measurement across studies. If a study did not have a unit cost, but did present both a total program cost and the number of persons served, the total program cost was divided by the number of persons served to obtain a unit cost. In addition, for studies that did not clarify if the unit cost was an economic or financial cost, the unit cost is listed as a financial unit cost.

To facilitate comparison of unit cost details across studies, both the economic and financial unit costs are disaggregated into five categories: "Personnel unit cost", "Drugs/supplies unit cost", “Laboratory unit cost”, "Other recurrent items (overhead) unit cost", and "Capital goods unit cost". "Personnel unit cost" includes: medical staff, peer educators, and outreach workers. "Drugs/supplies unit cost" includes: drugs (ARVs, OIs, other infections), reproductive health goods (including condoms), medical supplies (needles, gloves, etc.), and "other consumables" (if the text of the article indicates that these items are medical in nature). “Laboratory unit cost” includes: lab fees, test kits, reagents, HIV rapid tests, CD4, VL, chemistry and hematology, tests for OIs, and diagnostic tools such as imaging, "Other recurrent items unit cost" includes: central support/management staff, expatriate consultants, maintenance workers, "supervision", drivers, insurance, utilities/telephone, travel, site visits, publicity and other promotional activities, vehicle maintenance, other electronic maintenance, staff training (recurrent), monitoring, gasoline, meals, and “supplies”. "Capital goods unit cost" includes: start-up, buildings, rent, renovations, vehicles, office furniture, other equipment (autoclaves, typewriters), and staff training (start-up). Please note, if the author had a cost breakdown by category and included a particular cost in a different category from the standard used in the unit cost repository, the categorization used by the author was maintained in the unit cost repository. For example, if a study included insurance in capital costs, it was kept with capital costs in the unit cost breakdown, with a notation in “Items included” or "Further unit cost detail" that this deviated from the norm set by other studies.

The economic and financial unit costs that are given in the display grid are in 2011 US dollars using the GDP deflator for the appropriate year. Users that click on the “i” button for each study, and then the "Economic unit cost breakdown" or "Financial unit cost breakdown" tabs, will also see the economic and financial unit costs in the original cited US dollar amount (labeled reported currency) and the 2011 US dollar conversion. To convert from the original US dollar amount to 2011 US dollars, the inflation adjustment factor was applied relative to the year the author cited for the unit cost dollar amount. If the author did not give a year for the unit cost in the study, the inflation adjustment factor was applied relative to the year of data gathering given by the author. Finally, if neither the year for the unit cost dollar amount, nor the year of data gathering were given in the study, the year of the study publication was used with the inflation adjustment factor to obtain a 2011 dollar amount.

Please note that, although it is interpreted as validating the value, when more than half of the countries in a particular region used the initial default unit cost value in their final estimates, this is noted in the "Further unit cost detail" section. Further, although participants were provided with the intervention descriptions, the intervention elements included in their unit costs were not documented, and thus may vary from country to country.