Cost-benefit Analysis of the KiVa Anti-bullying Program in the Netherlands
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Cost-benefit Analysis of the KiVa Anti-bullying Program in the Netherlands Gijs Huitsing 1,2
&
Simone Iris Barends 1 & Joran Lokkerbol 3
# The Author(s) 2019
Abstract This study performs a cost-benefit analysis of the implementation of the KiVa anti-bullying program in the Netherlands. Specifically, it addressed whether the expected benefits of KiVa for victims in terms of lifetime income are greater than the costs that are made for implementing the program. The KiVa intervention was examined in a randomized controlled trial in the Netherlands in 2012–2014 in 98 Dutch primary schools (target grades US-level 3–4, 8 to 9 years old). A model-based approach was applied to the effects for the expected income for prevented victims, which is a long-term outcome that can be quantified. The estimated costs and benefits of implementing KiVa were used to estimate the return-on-investment (ROI) that indicated the expected benefits per euro invested. Investing in KiVa in the Netherlands generated an ROI of €4.04–€6.72, indicating that it is good value for money to invest in KiVa. The chosen estimates in this study were deemed conservative; on the cost side, it was assumed that schools maximally implement KiVa (thus, maximum costs), and on the benefit side, only the expected income effect for victims was included to the model. Quantifying and incorporating other outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, psychiatric problems, not only for victims but also for bullies, bystanders, parents, teachers) may further increase the ROI for this intervention. Keywords Anti-bullying program . Bullying victimization . Cost-benefit . KiVa . Prevention . Return-on-investment
Introduction Bullying in schools remains a major problem with serious short- and long-term consequences for victims, bullies, bystanders, teachers, and parents (Arseneault 2018; Copeland et al. 2013; Wolke and Lereya 2015) with staggering costs for societies (Kline and Lewis 2018). Many anti-bullying programs have been developed and tested for effectiveness in the past decades (see for recent overviews: Gaffney et al. 2018; see also Farrington et al. 2017; Yeager et al. 2015). In addition to the important question whether anti-bullying programs are effective, it is also necessary to examine whether benefits of * Gijs Huitsing [email protected]; http://www.rug.nl/staff/g.e.huitsing 1
Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
2
Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS), Groningen, The Netherlands
3
Centre of Economic Evaluation & Machine Learning, Netherlands Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Utrecht, The Netherlands
interventions exceed the costs. Cost-benefit analyses can be seen from an individual perspective (positive changes, increased performance), the organizational perspective (whether direct costs, such as materials and time investments, are exceeded by organizational benefits), or the societal perspective (whether the costs are smaller than benefits for society as a wh
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