Substance Abuse Prevention CBA

Cost-Benefit Analysis is a common tool used to assess the advantages and disadvantages of public programs and policies. One of challenges, however, can be determining the proper assumptions of value. The commonly-used question to illustrate this challenge is, what is the value of a human life worth?

A good example of the use of cost-benefit analysis is found in the below report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The goal of the analysis is to essentially determine whether substance abuse programs, as administered by HHS, are worth it. From the report:

This report summarizes existing estimates of the cost of substance abuse and its damaging consequences. These cost estimates are used to evaluate the benefits of prevention in existing cost-benefit analyses and are available for use in new analyses. The estimates reviewed highlight the total annual cost of substance abuse from a number of perspectives including social cost and the direct costs to State government. The social perspective includes everyone's costs and benefits: People who abuse substances, family members, the general public, communities, and all level of government (Federal, State, and local).