Fractures due to falls less than three meters are a major reason for long hospitalization, higher need for care, as a consequence thereof growing lack of independency especially for the elderly. The reduction of the fracture cases and the complications due to primary prevention is beneficial. As primary prevention strategies are as well diverse as often under discussion an objective assessment concerning the benefit of different programs in a passage of time is imperative for the decision-maker.
The superficial task is “How and when can the benefits of prevention be measured?”
This question arises against the background that prevention is a promise for the future whereby the point of time of emerging benefits is mostly unclear.
Major goal is the feasibility analysis and development of methods for evaluation of these primary prevention strategies.
For a restricted time-span methods for measuring of differences between primary prevention strategies and the base case (no prevention at all) should be evaluated. The delimited time-span is given by reduced life-expectancy (elderly) and fracture prevention (as immediately tangible measurement).
The underlying time-dependent process for representing the effect of different primary prevention strategies is realized using a microscopic modelling approach to enable the integration of personal characteristics and boundary conditions in high quality.
As a result the development of a mathematical measurement method is expected describing which primary prevention strategies guarantee a robust positive result in comparison with no prevention and depicting when it takes effect. This proceeding should support the decision-maker to select the most suitable primary prevention strategy.