TOPIC: Cost-Benefit Analyses Relevant to Addressing Barriers to Learning and Mental Health in Schools

The following represents a sample of information to get you started and is not meant to be exhaustive.
(Note: Clicking on the following links causes a new window to be opened. To return to this window, close the newly opened one).

I. Analyses: Mental Health Services and Psychosocial Programs (including cost-benefit of contrasting approaches)

• Child and Adolescent Mental Health Policies and Plans (World Health Organization, 2005) - (see section on "Economic Costs" p.13)
• Education and Health: Evaluating Theories and Evidence
• Effects of school-based mental health programs on mental health service use by adolescents at school and in the community
• Equal Mental Health Benefits Good for Families- AND- Good for Businesses
• Ethnography in evaluation: Uncovering hidden costs and benefits in child mental health
• Implementing Behavioral Intervention Components in a Cost-Effective Manner: An Analysis of the Incredible Years Program
• Mental Health: Pay for Services or Pay a Greater Price (National Mental Health Association)
• Paying Now or Paying Later The cost of allowing or encouraging youth with learning and behavioral problems to drop out of school
• Preventative Interventions Under Managed Care:Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
• Public costs of better mental health services for children and adolescents (Data Trends) - Summary
• Public Costs of Better Mental Health Services For Children and Adolescents (full study)
• The economics of early childhood policy (2008) M. Kilburn & L. Karoly, Rand

II. Analyses: Prevention

1. General
   • Applying Cost Analysis Methods to School-Based Prevention Programs
   • Cost-Benefit Estimates in Prevention Research
   • Cost-effectiveness of an Intervention to Prevent Depression in At-Risk Teens
   • Cost effectiveness of community-based physical activity interventions
   • Cost Effectiveness of Program for Student in High-Poverty Communtieis
   • Costs of Providing Adequate Program Services to Low-income Students

2. Early Childhood Programs
   • Age 21 Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Center Program Executive Summary
     
   • A Benefit-Cost Analysis of the Abecedarian Early Childhood Intervention" (National Institute for Early Education Research)
     
   • Benefits and Costs of the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program
   • The Cost, Quality and Child Outcomes Study: A Critique Preschool in the States
   • Early Childhood Development: Economic Development with a High Public Return
     
   • Early Childhood Education for All - A Wise Investment
   • Early Childhood Health Problems and Prevention Strategies: Costs and Benefits ­ Jan. 2008
   • The Economics of Investing in Universal Preschool Education in California (Rand Report)
     
   • Exceptional Returns: Economic, Fiscal, and Social Benefits of Investment in Early Childhood Development (Economic Policy Institute)
     
   • Investing in Our Children: What We Know and Don't Know About the Costs and Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions
   • Lifetime Effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 40 (High/Scope Educational Research Foundation)
     
   • Many Happy Returns: Three Economic Models that make the Case for School Readiness (State Early Childhood Policy, Resource Brief)
     
   • Measuring Preschool Cost and Revenues: Issues and Answers
   • The Price of School Readiness: A Tool for Estimating the Cost of Universal
   • Spending smarter: A funding guide for policymakers and advocates to promote social and emotional health and school readiness
     

3. Early Intervention After Problem Onset
   • Benefits and Costs of Prevention and Early Intervention Programs for Youth
   • Cost Assessment of a School-Based Mental Health Screening and Treatment Program in New York City

4. Violence Prevention
   • Can a Costly Intervention Be Cost-Effective?
   • Fact Sheet Summarizes the Cost of Violence in the United States
   • Peace Signs: A Sustainable Violence Prevention Collaboration Between Managed Care and School Health Programs

5. Substance Abuse
   • An Ounce of Prevention, A Pound of Uncertainty: The Cost-Effectiveness of School-Based Drug Prevention Programs
   • Cost-Benefit/Cost-Effectiveness Research of Drug Abuse Prevention: Implications for Programming and Policy
   • Preventive Intervention Cost-Effectiveness and Cost Benefit
   • Substance Abuse Prevention Dollars and Cents: A Cost Benefit Analysis

6. Health Promotion
   • Childhood Obesity: Costs, Treatment Patterns, Disparities in Care, and Prevalent Medical Conditions

7. After School Program
   • Costs and Benefits of After-School Programs
   • The Costs of Out-of-School Time Programs: A Review of the Available Evidence
   • The Costs and Benefits of After School Programs: The Estimated Effects of the After School Education and Safety Program Act of 2002
     

III. Most Cost Effective Ways to Addressing Problems

1. Juvenile Justice
   • Benefits and costs of prevention and early intervention programs for youth (Washington State Institute for Public Policy)
     
   • Book Review- Costs and Benefits of Preventing Crime
   • Cost-Benefit Analysis for Juvenile Justice Programs (Juvenile Justice Evaluation Center)
     
   • Cost Effective Youth Corrections: Rationalizing the Fiscal Architecture of Juvenile Justice Systems.
     
   • Diverting Children from a Life of Crime- What Are the Costs and Benefits? (Rand Research Brief)
   • The Economics of Juvenile Jurisdiction (Urban Institute)
   • Treatment, Services, and Intervention Programs for Child Delinquents (Child Delinquency Bulletin)

2. Substance Abuse Treatment
   • Cost Effectiveness and Cost Benefit Analysis of Substance Abuse Treatment: Literature Review and Annotated Bibliography
   • Cost benefits of substance abuse treatment: an overview of results from alcohol and drug use Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics
   • Measuring and Improving Costs, Cost-Effectiveness, and Cost-Benefit for Substance Abuse Treatment Programs
   • Untreated and Mistreated Mental Illness and Substance Abuse Costs U.S. $113 Billion a Year (National Mental Health Association)

3. Dropout
   • The Costs and Benefits of Three Intensive Interventions with Colorado Truants
   • Quick Facts Excerpts from the National Dropout Prevention Center

4. Child Abuse
   • Social & Economic Consequences of Abuse & Neglect
   • Using Benefit-Cost Analysis To Assess Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention Programs (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)

5. Achievement Gap/Education Reform
   • Closing the Education Gap: Benefits and Costs (RAND)

6. Mental Health
   • Financial cost of social exclusion: follow up study of antisocial children into adulthood
   • The Cost of Antisocial behaviour in younger children
     
   • Cost-effectiveness analysis of a home-based social work intervention for children and adolescents who have deliberately poisoned themselves. Results of a randomised controlled trial
     
   • The Individual-level and Societal-level effects of mental disorders on earnings in the United States: Results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (2008)
   • The Maudsley long-term follow-up of child and adolescent depression

IV. Cost-Effectiveness Methodology and General References

• The Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education
• Comorbidities and costs of adult patients diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Cost-Effective Investments in Children (2007) J.Isaacs, Brookings Institution
• Cost Outcome Methods for Mental Health
• Estimating the Costs of Preventive Interventions
• From Psychotherapy Research to Cost-Outcome Research: What Resources are necessary to Implement Which Therapy Procedures that Change What Processes to Yield Which Outcomes?
• Measuring Time Costs in Interventions Designed to Reduce Behavior Problems Among Children and Youth
• Measurement of Economic Costs in School Programs for Children and Youth
• Modeling the payoffs of interventions to reduce adolescent vulnerability. M.R. Burt, J.M. Zweig & J.Roman. Journal of Adolescent Health, Volume 31, Issue 1, Supplement 1 , July 2002, Pages 40-57
  
• Policymakers: A Checklist of Youth Development Principles
  
• A Primer for Making Cost Adjustments in Education
• Teacher Attrition: A Costly Loss to the Nation and to the States

V. References

• Assessing Costs and Benefits of Early Childhood Intervention Programs: Overivew and Application to the Starting Early Starting Smart Program. (2001). Karoly, L.A., Kilburn, M.R., Bigelow, J.H., Caulkins, J.P., & Cannon, J.S. Santa Monica, CA: Rand.
• Benefits and costs of prevention. In Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities. (2009). O'Connell, M.E., Boat, T. and Warner, K.E., Editors; Board on Children, Youth and Families: Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press
• Benefits and costs of prevention and early intervention programs for youth. (2004). Aos, S., Lieb, R., Mayfiled, J., Miller, M., & Pennucci, A.
• Cost-effectiveness analysis (2nd Ed.) (2001). Levin, H.M., McEwan, P.J. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Cost-benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis. In A. Kazdin (Ed.). (2000). Yates, B.T. Encyclopedia of Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association
• Prevention effectiveness: A guide to decision analysis and economic evaluation (Second ed.) (2003). Haddix, A.C., Teutsch, S.M., & Corso, P.S. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Quantitative exploration of Pandora's box of treatment and supervision: What goes on between costs in and outcomes out. In Welsh & farrington (Eds.) (2001) Taxman, F.S., & Yates, B.T. Costs and Benefits of Prevention Crime (pp. 51-84). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Reasons to Invest in Adolescents. (2002). Burt, M.R. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31:136-152
  
• Roles for psycological procedures, and psychological processes, in cost-offset research: Cost > procedure > outcome analysis. (2002). Yates, B.T. The impact of medical cost offset on practice and research: Making it work for you. (pp. 91-123). Reno, NV: Context Press.

---

We hope these resources met your needs. If not, feel free to contact us for further assistance.For additional resources related to this topic, use our search page to find people, organizations, websites and documents.  You may also go to our technical assistance page for more specific technical assistance requests.

If you haven't done so, you may want to contact our sister center, the Center for School Mental Health Analysis and Action at the University of Maryland at Baltimore.

If our website has been helpful, we are pleased and encourage you to use our site or contact our Center in the future.  At the same time, you can do your own technical assistance with "The fine Art of Fishing" which we have developed as an aid for do-it-yourself technical assistance.