Research Priorities for Economic Analyses of Prevention: Current Issues and Future Directions

Abstract

In response to growing interest in economic analyses of prevention efforts, a diverse group of prevention researchers, economists, and policy analysts convened a scientific panel, on “Research Priorities in Economic Analysis of Prevention” at the 19th annual conference of the Society for Prevention Research. The panel articulated four priorities that, if followed in future research, would make economic analyses of prevention efforts easier to compare and more relevant to policymakers, and community stakeholders. These priorities are: (1) increased standardization of evaluation methods, (2) improved economic valuation of common prevention outcomes, (3) expanded efforts to maximize evaluation generalizability and impact, as well as (4) enhanced transparency and communicability of economic evaluations. In this paper we define three types of economic analyses in prevention, provide context and rationale for these four priorities as well as related sub-priorities, and discuss the challenges inherent in meeting them.

Financing prevention: opportunities for economic analysis across the translational research cycle

“…While a growing number of evidence-based preventive interventions are available, the potential economic and fiscal impacts of these programs and policies are largely unknown [10,35].…”

“…This approach can be especially useful to researchers that are unable to follow participants over decades but wish to estimate the economic value of their work [10]. Unfortunately, few available shadow prices are applicable to behavioral prevention [9,42].…”

“…For instance, the lifetime increase in tax revenue from graduation is estimated to be around $127,000 a graduate. Such estimates have a number of uses, including priority setting for greater research inquiry [10,38]. Efforts to model Bnonacademic skills^impact in adulthood are one example of the growing body of evidence indicating that skills such as emotion regulation, social competence, and grit can be linked to economic value [47][48][49].…”

“…Benefit-cost analyses-Full benefit-cost analyses offer an alternative analytic approach that monetizes program outcomes and avoids many of the comparability concerns surrounding cost savings analyses [10]. Specifically, benefit-cost analyses require valuing all significant outcomes from a societal perspective.…”

“…Now, researchers seek to understand how preventive interventions perform in the real world as well as quantify Bwhat it takes^to carry out effective prevention efforts [3,8]. Yet, researchers have struggled to translate these evaluations' estimates into actionable policy [9][10][11][12]. Ultimately, what it takes often refers to the availability of the Bright^resources, at the right time, delivered in the right place-although what is right is often largely unknown [13,14].…”