TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2012//
TI  - An injury awareness education program on outcomes of juvenile justice offenders in Western Australia: an economic analysis
JO  - BMC health services research
A1  - Ho, Kwok M.
A1  - Geelhoed, Elizabeth
A1  - Gope, Monica
A1  - Burrell, Maxine
A1  - Rao, Sudhakar
SP  - 279
EP  - 279
VL  - 12
IS  - 1
N2  - BACKGROUND: Injury is a major cause of mortality and morbidity of young people and the cost-effectiveness of many injury prevention programs remains uncertain. This study aimed to analyze the costs and benefits of an injury awareness education program, the P.A.R.T.Y. (Prevent Alcohol and Risk-related Trauma in Youth) program, for juvenile justice offenders in Western Australia. METHODS: Costs and benefits analysis based on effectiveness data from a linked-data cohort study on 225 juvenile justice offenders who were referred to the education program and 3434 who were not referred to the program between 2006 and 2011. RESULTS: During the study period, there were 8869 hospitalizations and 113 deaths due to violence or traffic-related injuries among those aged between 14 and 21 in Western Australia. The mean length of hospital stay was 4.6 days, a total of 320 patients (3.6%) needed an intensive care admission with an average length of stay of 6 days. The annual cost saved due to serious injury was $3,765 and the annual net cost of running this program was $33,735. The estimated cost per offence prevented, cost per serious injury avoided, and cost per undiscounted and discounted life year gained were $3,124, $42,169, $8,268 and $17,910, respectively. Increasing the frequency of the program from once per month to once per week would increase its cost-effectiveness substantially. CONCLUSIONS: The P.A.R.T.Y. injury education program involving real-life trauma scenarios was cost-effective in reducing subsequent risk of committing violence or traffic-related offences, injuries, and death for juvenile justice offenders in Western Australia.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1472-6963
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-279
ID  - ref1
ER  -