Abstract
Economic models to inform decision-making are gaining popularity, especially for preventive interventions. However, there are few estimates of the long-term returns to parenting interventions used to prevent mental health problems in children. Using data from a randomised controlled trial evaluating five indicated parenting interventions for parents of children aged 5–12, we modeled the economic returns resulting from reduced costs in the health care and education sector, and increased long-term productivity in a Swedish setting. Analyses done on the original trial population, and on various sized local community populations indicated positive benefit–cost ratios. Even smaller local authorities would financially break-even, thus interventions were of good value-for-money. Benefit–cost analyses of such interventions may improve the basis for resource allocation within local decision-making.
Highlights
There has been an increased use in recent years of benefit–cost analyses for evaluating early interventions for children and youth (Cunha and Heckman 2007)
In addition to the local community populations, an exploratory analysis was conducted where we aimed to find out how large a local authority population would have to be in order for an investment in any of the parenting intervention to yield positive financial returns
The results are presented per individual, while for the small, medium and large population, results are presented for the whole municipality population that would receive the intervention, indicated in each paragraph
Summary
There has been an increased use in recent years of benefit–cost analyses for evaluating early interventions for children and youth (Cunha and Heckman 2007) Both scientific literature and public reports show substantial economic returns, some with a focus on preventive interventions of mental health problems (Aos et al 2004; Barnett and Masse 2007; Heckman et al 2009; Reynolds et al 2011). Within the mental health spectra, behaviour problems cause a substantial disease burden among children and adolescents, and together with an early age of onset, makes a case for early intervention (Kessler et al 2007; Erskine et al 2015). Service use for children with coexisting problems are expected to be even higher
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