ReviewApplied health economics and health policy2021
'What You See is All There is': The Importance of Heuristics in Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Social Return on Investment (SROI) in the Evaluation of Public Health Interventions.
Review in Applied health economics and health policy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- The National Health and Medical Research Council Research Impact Indicators: Unveiling Omissions and Blind Spots, and Positioning for Change.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2026Article
- Return on investment of community health workers in the United States: a systematic review.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2026Article
- A holistic approach for quantifying the value of public health programs: social return on investment (SROI) analysis of a mobile clinic as an example.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Football cooperative: a pragmatic controlled trial of a community-based physical activity social intervention for men when replicated using a Social Return on Investment (SROI) framework protocol paper.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Capturing the wider benefits from football participation: a social return on investment (SROI) evaluation of a community based football intervention.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Prostate Cancer Specialist Nursing Program: A Social Return on Investment Analysis Value for Money of the Prostate Cancer Specialist Nursing Program.Psycho-oncology · 2025Article
- A framework for quantifying the multisectoral burden of animal disease to support decision making.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2025Review
- Mandating Emergency Management in Nursing Homes in the V4 Countries With the Support of the Public Administration-A Mapping Study.Nursing research and practice · 2025Review
- Article
- Cost effectiveness and return on investment analysis for surgical care in a conflict-affected region of Sudan.PLOS global public health · 2024Article
- Actions to Improve the Secondary Prevention of Fragility Fractures in Women with Postmenopausal Osteoporosis: A Social Return on Investment (SROI) Study.ClinicoEconomics and outcomes research : CEOR · 2024Article
- The optimisation of public health emergency governance: a simulation study based on COVID-19 pandemic control policy.Globalization and health · 2023Article
- Analyses of the return on investment of public health interventions: a scoping review and recommendations for future studies.BMJ global health · 2023Article
- Prevention of Poor Physical and Mental Health through the Green Social Prescribing Opening Doors to the Outdoors Programme: A Social Return on Investment Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The social return on investment of physical activity and nutrition interventions-a scoping review.Frontiers in sports and active living · 2023Article
- A cost-benefit analysis framework for preventive health interventions to aid decision-making in Australian governments.Health research policy and systems · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Health economists are currently debating, with some suspicion, the relative merits of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), grounded in theoretical welfare economics, and the proliferation of social return on investment (SROI), a pragmatic approach of developing a triple-bottom line (social, environmental and financial), but not grounded in welfare theory. We argue, in rather existential terms, that there is a need to understand the role of heuristics, or prior beliefs, in current 'best practice' in CBA and SROI. A taxonomy of CBA and SROI is presented, which summarises the origins of the methods, reporting guidance, publication checklist of quality of reporting, who is wanting these analytical approaches, and policy decision rule present. We argue that a bottom-up SROI is best thought of as localised CBA, building stakeholder involvement right into the framing of SROI, perhaps addressing or mitigating the effects of prior heuristics in top-down CBA. Behavioural CBA and social CBA recognise that people are not rational and that sources of value other than willingness to pay may best reflect social values. Standardisation of SROI and comparison with CBA may illuminate the role of prior heuristics and seek to better reflect social value in weighing up the costs and benefits of public health interventions at both a local and societal level.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.