UNIVERSITY

PARK, Pa. — The Society for Prevention Research released a new set of

standards to guide how researchers and public health officials estimate

the costs, benefits and return on investment of health and social

service prevention programs, based on the work by a taskforce co-chaired

by a Penn State researcher.

The standards are summarized in a manuscript in the journal Prevention Science.

One standard focuses on estimating costs and benefits of developing

an infrastructure for prevention. For example, while there is an

emergency room for emergency medicine, no such infrastructure exists

specifically for prevention medicine, according to Max Crowley,

assistant professor of human development and family studies and co-chair

of the taskforce.

Additionally, prevention efforts sometimes “piggyback” on schools,

but schools are often under-resourced, he said. These standards provide

guidelines on estimating the cost of infrastructure needed for

prevention programs.

“By following these standards, scientists can provide policymakers

and practitioners the information they need to help more people. These

standards aim to better help both patients and communities,” Crowley

said.

To come up with the standards, the taskforce engaged in outreach with

a wide array of professional organizations and researchers to build

consensus around standards for conducting rigorous and replicable

estimates of the value of preventive interventions. The standards were

designed to support the development of high-quality and high-utility

economic estimates that can be used for public budgeting.

These standards were developed through the Society for Prevention

Research’s Mapping Advances in Prevention Science initiative funded by

the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse.

This initiative formed a taskforce of leading experts in prevention

science, public finance and policy with the goal of identifying best

practices to understand the economic impact of investments in

prevention.

The taskforce convened in light of increasing evidence that

prevention is not only a good investment, but may be more cost‐effective

then downstream treatment for a number of societal problems.

“Prevention science is an interdisciplinary field that touches on

nearly every domain of public and private life,” Crowley said. “These

standards provide guidance for the scientific community to conduct

research that not only meets the pressing needs of our society, but can

be used to guide how we invest limited public resources.”

Kenneth Dodge, Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies

and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University,

co-chaired the taskforce with Crowley.

Ultimately, the task force hopes these estimates will lead to more

effective and efficient interventions that improve health and wellbeing

for all.