Abstract
Estimating the benefits of preventing child maltreatment (CM) is essential for policy makers to determine whether there are significant returns on investment from interventions to prevent CM. The aim of this study was to estimate the benefits of preventing CM deaths in an Ecuadorian population, and to compare the results to a similar study in a US population. The study used the contingent valuation method to elicit respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for a 1 in 100,000 reduction in the risk of CM mortality. After adjusting for differences in purchasing power, the WTP to prevent the CM mortality risk reduction in the Ecuador population was $237 and the WTP for the same risk reduction in the US population was $175. In the pooled analysis, WTP for a reduction in CM mortality was significantly impacted by country (p = 0.03), history of CM (p = 0.007), payment mechanism (p < 0.001), confidence in response (p = 0.014), and appropriateness of the payment mechanism (p < 0.001). These findings suggest that estimating benefits from one culture may not be transferable to another, and that low- and middle-income countries, such as Ecuador, may be better served by developing their own benefits estimates for use in future benefit-cost analyses of interventions designed to prevent CM.
Highlights
Economic evaluation methods, such as benefit-cost analysis (BCA), are increasingly being used to show returns on investment of violence prevention interventions
The initial contingent valuation (CV) survey to elicit WTP to prevent child maltreatment (CM) deaths in the United States was conducted by telephone interview in Fall 2008 among a randomly selected sample of adult residents
An important question when performing BCAs of CM interventions in low- to middle-income countries is whether estimates of WTP computed in the United States can be used as a benefits measure
Summary
Economic evaluation methods, such as benefit-cost analysis (BCA), are increasingly being used to show returns on investment of violence prevention interventions. While the field has made considerable progress in estimating the value of preventing CM events from a human capital perspective (e.g., valuing medical costs and productivity losses averted) [2,3,4,5,6], these estimates are invariably an underestimate of the true benefit of preventing a case of CM because long-term effects are hard to quantify, impacts on quality of life are not included, and it fails to capture any intangible benefits that may be at least as important to taxpayers [6,7] Another methodology to value the benefits of preventing violent outcomes for use in a BCA is the contingent valuation (CV) method. Ludwig and Cook [9,10], in a CV study of respondents being asked to value the prevention of violence caused by firearms, found that respondents’ total WTP to reduce gun violence by 30% equaled
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
