TABLE 3—

Financial Outcomes of a Reduction in Liters of Alcohol Consumed Per Capita: Australia, 2008

High-Risk Alcohol Consumption, Financial Outcomes	Ideal Target Reduction (A$ Million), Mean (95% CI)	Progressive Target Reduction (A$ Million), Mean (95% CI)
Health sector costs	789	395
Production costs HCA	–1541 (–4060,1123)	–777 (–2046,566)
Production costs FCA	427 (–381, 1609)	220 (–189, 846)
Recruitment and training costs	30	15
Leisure-based production	–12 (–813,779)	–6 (–406,389)
Home-based production	21 (–495, 532)	11 (–247, 266)
Total production HCA	–1532 (–4418,1398)	–772 (–2190,690)
Total production FCA	435 (–1142, 2115)	224 (–556, 1076)

Note. CI = confidence interval; FCA = friction cost approach (preferred conservative estimate); HCA = human capital approach. These financial outcomes are opportunity cost estimates and not immediately realizable cash savings. The total opportunity cost savings are the sum of the health sector offsets and the combined workforce, household, and leisure-production effects. The mean estimates can be added together in this way, but not the uncertainty intervals, as both the components and the total are run as independent simulations. Recruitment and training costs are included in production gains or losses when we used the FCA but not counted when we used the HCA. No probabilistic uncertainty analysis was conducted for health sector offsets. Taxation is treated as a transfer payment and should not be added to production effects or health sector offsets. Health sector, leisure, and home-based production estimates are based on persons aged ≥ 15 years. Production gains (losses) and taxation effects are based on persons aged 15–64 years. Values are net present value using a 3% discount rate. Negative numbers indicate the possibility of losses resulting from achieving the target, rather than gains.