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Unit Costs of Delinquent Acts for Use in Economic Evaluations.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Youth mental health interventions aimed at reducing substance use and delinquency in adolescents compete with other types of interventions for reimbursement from public funding. Within the youth mental health domain, delinquent acts impose high costs on society. These costs should be included in economic evaluations conducted from a societal perspective. Although the relevance of these costs is recognized, they are often left out because the unit costs of delinquent acts are unknown. AIMS OF THE STUDY:This study aims to provide a method for estimating the unit costs per perpetrator of 14 delinquent acts common in the Netherlands and included in self reported delinquency questionnaires: robbery/theft with violence, simple theft/pickpocketing, receiving stolen goods, destruction/vandalism of private or public property, disorderly conduct/discrimination, arson, cybercrime, simple and aggravated assault, threat, forced sexual contact, unauthorised driving, driving under the influence, dealing in soft drugs, and dealing in hard drugs. METHODS:Information on government expenditures and the incidence of crimes, number of perpetrators, and the percentage of solved and reported crimes was obtained from the national database on crime and justice of the Research and Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Justice and Security, Statistics Netherlands, and the Council for the Judiciary in the Netherlands. We applied a top-down micro costing approach to calculate the point estimate of the unit costs for each of the delinquent acts and, subsequently, estimated the mean (SD) unit costs for each of the delinquent acts by taking random draws from a triangular distribution while taking into account a 10% uncertainty associated with the associated point estimate. RESULTS:The mean (SD) unit costs per delinquent act per perpetrator ranged between EUR495 (EUR1.30) for "Driving under the influence" and EUR33,813 (EUR78.30) for a "Cybercrime". These unit costs may be considered as outliers as most unit costs ranged between EUR 2,600 and EUR 13,500 per delinquent act per perpetrator. DISCUSSION:This study is the first to estimate the unit costs per delinquent act per perpetrator in the Netherlands. The results of this study enable the inclusion of government expenditures associated with crime and justice in economic evaluations conducted from a societal perspective. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVISION AND USE:Youth mental health interventions aimed at reducing substance use and delinquency in adolescents are increasingly subjected to economic evaluations. These evaluations are used to inform decisions concerning the allocation of scarce healthcare resources and should cover all the costs and benefits for society, including those associated with delinquent acts. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICIES:The results of this study facilitate economic evaluations of youth mental health interventions aimed at reducing substance use and delinquency in adolescents, conducted from a societal perspective. IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH:Based on health-economic evaluations conducted in the field of youth mental health and the results of the current study, we recommend including the estimated unit costs in guidelines for health-economic evaluations conducted from a societal perspective. Future research could aim at examining whether these unit costs require regular updating. The methodology applied in this study allows for this.

SUBMITTER: Reckers-Droog VT

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6839943 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Unit Costs of Delinquent Acts for Use in Economic Evaluations.

Reckers-Droog Vivian T VT Goorden Maartje M Dijkgraaf Marcel G W MGW Van Eeren Hester V HV McCollister Kathryn E KE Hakkaart-van Roijen Leona L

The journal of mental health policy and economics 20190601 2

<h4>Background</h4>Youth mental health interventions aimed at reducing substance use and delinquency in adolescents compete with other types of interventions for reimbursement from public funding. Within the youth mental health domain, delinquent acts impose high costs on society. These costs should be included in economic evaluations conducted from a societal perspective. Although the relevance of these costs is recognized, they are often left out because the unit costs of delinquent acts are u ...[more]

PMID: 31319377

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Project description:BackgroundMantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is a rare and aggressive subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. While treatment of patients with MCL and their outcomes are previously published, the availability of heath economics evidence is unclear.ObjectiveThe aim of this paper was to conduct a comprehensive review of studies relating to economic evaluations, costs and resource use, and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with MCL.MethodsSearch strategies were designed to capture studies reporting economic or HRQoL outcomes published in the previous 11 years (2007-2018). The following electronic databases were searched: MEDLINE, Embase, NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), and EconLit. In addition, we reviewed congress abstracts presented over the previous 2 years (2015 and 2016; where 2017 proceedings had occurred, these were searched instead of 2015). Publications were screened in duplicate by two reviewers and supplementary searches were carried out on health technology assessment websites. Searches were first conducted in October 2017 and updated in March 2018.FindingsThe systematic literature review identified 11 economic evaluations (in 16 publications), seven studies reporting data relating to costs or resource use, and five relating to HRQoL. Four economic evaluations presented results for patients with MCL modelled in the first-line setting, while seven modelled patients in the relapsed/refractory setting. The majority of economic evaluations were conducted using a Markov model with three to five health states. Seven studies assessed resource use and reported adverse events as key drivers of increased costs and resource use. Across the five studies reporting HRQoL, disparate measures were used. Two studies reported improvement in Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Lymphoma (FACT-Lym) total scores following treatment and found that clinical response to treatment was associated with improvement in overall HRQoL.Conclusions and relevanceThe published economic and HRQoL evidence in MCL, although scarce, reveals that the economic and HRQoL burden associated with MCL is substantial. In highlighting this evidence, this analysis underlines a critical unmet need for more effective treatments with improved outcomes in MCL.

Project description:Background Valuation is a critical part of the costing process in health economic evaluations. However, an overview of specific issues relevant to the European context on harmonizing methodological requirements for the valuation of costs to be used in health economic evaluation is lacking. We aimed to inform the development of an international, harmonized and multi-sectoral costing framework, as sought in the European PECUNIA (ProgrammE in Costing, resource use measurement and outcome valuation for Use in multi-sectoral National and International health economic evaluAtions) project. Methods We conducted a scoping review (information extraction 2008–2021) to a) to demonstrate the degree of heterogeneity that currently exists in the literature regarding central terminology, b) to generate an overview of the most relevant areas for harmonization in multi-sectoral and multi-national costing processes for health economic evaluations, and c) to provide insights into country level variation regarding economic evaluation guidance. A complex search strategy was applied covering key publications on costing methods, glossaries, and international costing recommendations augmented by a targeted author and reference search as well as snowballing. Six European countries served as case studies to describe country-specific harmonization issues. Identified information was qualitatively synthesized and cross-checked using a newly developed, pilot-tested data extraction form. Results Costing methods for services were found to be heterogeneous between sectors and country guidelines and may, in practice, be often driven by data availability and reimbursement systems in place. The lack of detailed guidance regarding specific costing methods, recommended data sources, double-counting of costs between sectors, adjustment of unit costs for inflation, transparent handling of overhead costs as well as the unavailability of standardized unit costing estimates in most countries were identified as main drivers of country specific differences in costing methods with a major impact on valuation and cost-effectiveness evidence. Conclusion This review provides a basic summary of existing costing practices for evaluative purposes across sectors and countries and highlights several common methodological factors influencing divergence in cost valuation methods that would need to be systematically incorporated and addressed in future costing practices to achieve more comparable, harmonized health economic evaluation evidence. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13561-022-00390-y.

Project description:BACKGROUND:In increasingly constrained healthcare budgets worldwide, efforts to improve quality and reduce costs are vital. Quality Improvement Collaboratives (QICs) are often used in healthcare settings to implement proven clinical interventions within local and national programs. The cost of this method of implementation, however, is cited as a barrier to use. This systematic review aims to identify and describe studies reporting on costs and cost-effectiveness of QICs when used to implement clinical guidelines in healthcare. METHODS:Multiple databases (CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, EconLit and ProQuest) were searched for economic evaluations or cost studies of QICs in healthcare. Studies were included if they reported on economic evaluations or costs of QICs. Two authors independently reviewed citations and full text papers. Key characteristics of eligible studies were extracted, and their quality assessed against the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS). Evers CHEC-List was used for full economic evaluations. Cost-effectiveness findings were interpreted through the Johanna Briggs Institute 'three by three dominance matrix tool' to guide conclusions. Currencies were converted to United States dollars for 2018 using OECD and World Bank databases. RESULTS:Few studies reported on costs or economic evaluations of QICs despite their use in healthcare. Eight studies across multiple healthcare settings in acute and long-term care, community addiction treatment and chronic disease management were included. Five were considered good quality and favoured the establishment of QICs as cost-effective implementation methods. The cost savings to the healthcare setting identified in these studies outweighed the cost of the collaborative itself. CONCLUSIONS:Potential cost savings to the health care system in both acute and chronic conditions may be possible by applying QICs at scale. However, variations in effectiveness, costs and elements of the method within studies, indicated that caution is needed. Consistent identification of costs and description of the elements applied in QICs would better inform decisions for their use and may reduce perceived barriers. Lack of studies with negative findings may have been due to publication bias. Future research should include economic evaluations with societal perspectives of costs and savings and the cost-effectiveness of elements of QICs. TRIAL REGISTRATION:PROSPERO registration number: CRD42018107417.

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Unit Costs of Delinquent Acts for Use in Economic Evaluations.

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Unit Costs of Delinquent Acts for Use in Economic Evaluations.

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