Since 2007, a recognition committee in the Netherlands judges interventions for health promotion, as well as interventions for youth health and wellbeing. Thus far, costs and cost-effectiveness hardly played a role in the approval procedure. Adding a formal fourth level of recognition at this point in time (2012) is deemed infeasible. However, several possibilities are described to improve the information about costs and cost-effectiveness of interventions for users of intervention databases.
Recognition may take place at three levels. This report describes the advantages and disadvantages of adding a fourth level of approval, 'evidence of being costeffective', giving a formal place to cost-effectiveness in the approval system. To answer the question whether adding this fourth level is feasible, the international experience on approval or assessment of cost-effectiveness was confronted with current practice in the Netherlands. Furthermore, different ways to include information on costs and cost-effectiveness by databases with interventions or literature were compared. Finally, several different ways to improve the information about costs and cost-effectiveness of interventions for users of intervention databases were discussed.