Kuala Lumpur, 26 August 2025 - At the 12th HTAsiaLink Conference 2025 in Singapore, held from 19 to 22 August under the theme “Unlocking Value through Health Technology Assessment in Asia: Forging Ahead Together”, Sivaraj A/L Raman of Malaysia’s National Institutes of Health delivered a presentation on early autism detection in preschool settings. The talk, titled “Investing in Early Autism Detection: A Cost Benefit Analysis of AI Based Screening for Malaysian Preschoolers”, drew strong engagement.

Speaking in the Economic Evaluation track, Sivaraj outlined how integrating the TOY8 developmental screening approach within preschools can enable earlier identification, support equitable access and generate value for families as well as for health and education systems. The presentation set out the study design and Malaysian data sources, and explained why a cost benefit framework is appropriate for decision making because it consolidates multiple outcomes into a single monetary metric. He also described planned sensitivity analyses to assess robustness to key parameters such as program cost and discount rate.

During the discussion, Sivaraj addressed questions on whether cost effectiveness analysis using clinical endpoints would change decisions, the influence of dataset size on estimates, applicability to younger age groups and the pathway to policy integration in Malaysia. He noted that case counts were held constant while the timing of detection varied, that performance improvements to enhance sensitivity and specificity are being pursued, and that aligning screening with routine education pathways is central to reaching children who may miss infant screening windows.

The presentation is based on an ongoing cost benefit analysis of the TOY8 developmental screening in Malaysian preschool settings. The study quantifies benefits and costs associated with earlier detection to inform public sector decision making.In related activity, the Cost Benefit Analysis Study Team submitted a poster to the National HTA Conference 2025 organised by MaHTAS, Ministry of Health Malaysia. The poster received the Best Poster award, reflecting growing interest in economic evidence for early detection.