Session: Integrating Knowledge from Diverse Studies for Predicting Impact and Cost of Prevention (Society for Prevention Research 23rd Annual Meeting)

This symposium will focus on the utilization of existing data from trials and representative surveys to predict the population impact of large-scale intervention dissemination, as well as the populations most likely to benefit from prevention efforts. Additionally, presentations will include simulation of intervention effects and scenario analyses, which can be incredibly useful tools for communicating with policy makers as they attempt to select interventions that will work for their respective populations. This symposium aims to discuss a) the type of data required for simulating prevention policy and program effects, b) results from simulation models on the potential population level effects of existing programs, as a metric for prevention researchers to assess the state of the field and shape a research agenda, and c) opportunities and methods for utilizing simulation models to create and support research driven policy. The first presentation in this symposium highlights the staggering, consistent rates of suicide among adolescents, and presents predictions of the potential population level effects of disseminating evidence based interventions for suicide prevention, based upon the work of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. These simulation efforts included not only trial data from various studies, but also publicly available data, an important but often overlooked resource. A second presentation proposes a care cascade for adolescent depression prevention that is adapted from the HIV prevention field and was developed in partnership with the Institute of Medicine’s Forum for Children’s Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Health.  Based upon a synthesis across similar types of studies, this cascade simulates the population preventive effects that could be achieved if we were to use the best available screening and prevention intervention methods to reach adolescent youth, 9.1% of whom experience an episode of major depression within the past year.  The third speaker will present an innovative method for estimating the financial ramifications of implementing prevention efforts, referred to as budget impact analyses, as these analyses go behind tallying the costs required for initial implementation and sustainment of a particular policy or service, but also estimate the shifting of resources and trickle over effects through budgets.  The session will close with a discussion on ways to frame this research to inform policy makers, and close gaps in the existing research.