Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com www.Ebook777.com Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com Committee on the Use of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families Eugene Steuerle and Leigh Miles Jackson, Editors Board on Children, Youth, and Families Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education www.Ebook777.com Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 This activity was supported by Contract No 10002411 from the Jacobs Foundation, Contract No 10002006 from the MacArthur Foundation, and Contract No 10002289 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-44059-2 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-44059-9 Digital Object Identifier: 10.17226/23481 Additional copies of this report are available for sale from the National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Keck 360, Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313; http://www.nap.edu Copyright 2016 by the National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Cover credit: Jay Christian Design, LLC Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2016) Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families Washington, DC: The National Academies Press doi: 10.17226/23481 Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an Act of Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, nongovernmental institution to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology Members are elected by their peers for outstanding contributions to research Dr Ralph J Cicerone is president The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the practices of engineering to advising the nation Members are elected by their peers for extraordinary contributions to engineering Dr C D Mote, Jr., is president The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) was established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to advise the nation on medical and health issues Members are elected by their peers for distinguished contributions to medicine and health Dr Victor J Dzau is president The three Academies work together as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions The Academies also encourage education and research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and increase public understanding in matters of science, engineering, and medicine Learn more about the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine at www.national-academies.org Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com www.Ebook777.com Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families COMMITTEE ON THE USE OF ECONOMIC EVIDENCE TO INFORM INVESTMENTS IN CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES EUGENE STEUERLE (Chair), Urban Institute, Washington, DC RICARDO BASURTO-DAVILA, Office of Health Assessment and Epidemiology, Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, CA JENNIFER BROOKS, Early Learning, U.S Program, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN, Teachers College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York City, NY BARBARA CHOW, Education Program, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Menlo Park, CA PHAEDRA CORSO, Department of Health Policy and Management, University of Georgia, Athens DANIEL MAX CROWLEY, College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, University Park JODY L FITZPATRICK, School of Public Affairs (retired), University of Colorado, Denver LYNN A KAROLY, Pardee RAND Graduate School, RAND Corporation, Philadelphia, PA MARGARET KUKLINSKI, Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle RACHEL NUGENT, Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases Global Initiative, RTI International, Seattle, WA OLGA ACOSTA PRICE, Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, George Washington University, Washington, DC TED MILLER, Public Services Research Institute, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, Calverton, MD ANNE SHERIDAN, Sheridan & Associates, Potomac, MD LEIGH MILES JACKSON, Study Director BRIDGET KELLY, Senior Program Officer TARA MAINERO, Associate Program Officer NOAM KEREN, Research Associate STACEY SMIT, Senior Program Assistant PAMELLA ATAYI, Administrative Assistant ALIA SANI, Intern v Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families BOARD ON CHILDREN, YOUTH, AND FAMILIES ANGELA DIAZ (Chair), Departments of Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai SHARI BARKIN, Monroe Carell Jr Children’s Hospital, Vanderbilt University THOMAS F BOAT, College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati W THOMAS BOYCE, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia DAVID A BRENT, Western Psychiatric Institute and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine DAVID V.B BRITT, Sesame Workshop (retired) DEBBIE I CHANG, Nemours Health and Prevention Services PATRICK H DELEON, F Edward Hebert School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Nursing Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences ELENA FUENTES-AFFLICK, University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco General Hospital EUGENE E GARCIA, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University J DAVID HAWKINS, School of Social Work, University of Washington JEFFREY W HUTCHINSON, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences JACQUELINE JONES, Foundation for Child Development ANN S MASTEN, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota VELMA McBRIDE MURRY, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University BRUCE S McEWEN, The Rockefeller University MARTIN J SEPULVEDA, IBM Corporation TAHA E TAHA, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health NATACHA BLAIN, Director (beginning December 2015) KIMBER BOGARD, Director (through July 2015) BRIDGET KELLY, Acting Director (July-December 2015) vi Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families Preface A lmost nothing drives the development of society more than investments in the nation’s children Accordingly, public and private policy makers, funders, and others have in recent years called for and sponsored the production and use of economic evidence to inform decision making on how to make such investments The rationale for these efforts appears straightforward: better evidence should enable higher returns from such investments Yet to date, the use of such evidence has been limited Why? Many reasons might be ventured: politics, special interests, power of the status quo, the limits on which evidence can be quantified, and the relative adolescence of the field Some of these reasons can be interesting from an historical viewpoint, but the more compelling question for future investments is how to improve the development of economic evidence so it can better inform those investments Two answers to this latter question stand out and serve as the two principles around which this report is organized: quality counts and context matters The better the quality of the research, the better it is received, and the more likely it is to generate demand for future economic evidence even on unrelated investments At the same time, if high-quality evidence is to be used well, it must be suited to the context in which decisions are made It must be timely and relevant to the decisions at hand and account for many other needs of the consumer It was in teasing out the many ramifications of these two principles that the committee convened to conduct this study responded to a 2014 charge from its sponsors—the Jacobs Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—to vii Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families viii PREFACE study how to improve the use of economic evidence to inform investments in children, youth, and families The committee focused its attention on economic evaluation, a type of economic analysis that is commonly performed to provide economic information related to investments in children, youth, and families Economic evaluation encompasses cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, benefitcost analysis, and related methods used in an effort to quantify program costs and outcomes and potentially to make comparisons among programs These methods are commonly employed in randomized controlled trials, but by no means does the committee discount the value of other approaches—ranging from theory to qualitative analysis to other forms of statistical analysis—and indeed, it encourages researchers reporting on economic evaluation to acknowledge what might be learned through such other means Perhaps not surprising, the committee identified many instances in which the quality of economic evidence was low, such as failure to account for many types of costs, or was reported in ways that could mislead by failing to acknowledge limitations of the analysis, often forced by restricted budgets Accordingly, a major goal of this study was to recommend a number of ways in which current practices in the production of economic evidence could be improved Likewise, this report suggests that producers and consumers of economic evidence can gain by giving considerable attention before, during, and after economic evaluations are performed to the context or broader system within which investment decisions are made Setting and organizational capacity matter—as politics and values, culture and management practices, and budget This report includes a roadmap outlining a multipronged strategy for fostering multi-stakeholder partnerships to address these issues and for improving incentives for the use of economic evidence for various stakeholders, ranging from publishers of economic research results to program evaluators Needless to say, the topic of this study is of such breadth that the committee makes no pretense of having covered every angle In some cases, moreover, it was necessary to apply lessons from related literatures because the literature on the actual use of economic evaluations was scant The committee members brought to this study a wide range of experience and expertise, as well as common sense Their energy was unbounded; their enthusiasm strong; and their dedication to the public good through solid, professional, and unbiased research paramount This report was truly a collaborative effort, with multiple authors and mutual editors and wide acceptance of critiques It was my pleasure to serve with this esteemed group The committee’s talents would have been sorely tried without the superlative efforts of the study staff, led by Leigh Miles Jackson, study director; Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com PREFACE ix Tara Mainero, associate program officer; Noam Keren, research associate; and Stacey Smit, senior program assistant Wonderful guidance and encouragement also were provided by Natacha Blain, current director of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Bridget Kelly, former acting director; and earlier, Kimber Bogard, then serving as director The report also benefited greatly from the efforts of our editor, Rona Briere They kept us on track, organized our disparate thoughts, and made extraordinary organizational and other tasks look ordinary The committee extends its profound thanks and indebtedness to them Of course, this study is not about us; it is about the children, youth, and families whose lives are touched, often in crucial and profound ways, by the investment decisions that were this study’s focus It is our hope that we have advanced their well-being by describing ways to inform these decisions through better use of economic evidence If producers and consumers of this evidence devote greater attention to its quality and the context in which it is used, we believe we will have succeeded in that task Eugene Steuerle, Chair Committee on the Use of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families www.Ebook777.com Copyright © National Academy of Sciences All rights reserved ... Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families ADVANCING THE POWER OF ECONOMIC EVIDENCE conclusions about the utility and use of evidence to inform. .. Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families 22 ADVANCING THE POWER OF ECONOMIC EVIDENCE cine and the NRC formed the Committee on the Use of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments... reserved Advancing the Power of Economic Evidence to Inform Investments in Children, Youth, and Families ADVANCING THE POWER OF ECONOMIC EVIDENCE Actualizing Improvements in the Utility and Use of