Reports Say Substance Abuse Prevention Programs Return $10 per Dollar Invested
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March 13, 2009
According to researchers from Iowa State University (ISU), substance abuse prevention programs are economically beneficial, with a nearly $10 return for every dollar invested in prevention.
Richard Spoth, Ph.D. director of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute (PPSI) at ISU, and Max Guyll, Ph.D. assistant professor of psychology at ISU, presented their findings at a conference cosponsored by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the World Health Organization. The researchers told attendees representing approximately 100 countries that studies of PPSI’s Iowa Strengthening Families Program and Life Skills Training Program demonstrated significant cost benefits.
The research estimated how many cases of drug use each intervention prevented and compared the cost of each successful intervention with the cost savings to the community.
“We showed how prevention can be particularly economically beneficial,” Spoth said. “The presentation began by reviewing the evidence on the cost effectiveness and the return on the investment—or cost benefits—of prevention programs.”
“Effective and efficient prevention promises to save possibly billions of dollars per year, provided we can learn how to effectively implement it on a larger scale,” Spoth told the conference.
The complete ISU reports, Prevention’s Cost Effectiveness—Illustrative Economic Benefits of General Population Interventions and Prevention of Substance-related Problems: Effectiveness of Family-focused Prevention, are available on the PPSI Web site.