PECUNIA Reference Unit Cost (RUC) templates for criminal justice and education
These templates help measure and value costs of mental health interventions that affect the criminal justice and education sectors. They were developed to allow consistent and comparable cost assessments across different countries.
At a glance
Use when
Conducting economic evaluations of mental health interventions with impacts on education or criminal justice; when international comparability of non-health sector costs is needed
Avoid when
Assessing interventions with no expected spillover effects outside health care; when local costing norms significantly differ and cannot be adapted
Inputs
Resource use data from criminal justice and education sectors, service utilization records, national cost databases, labor and operational cost inputs
Outputs
Standardized unit costs for services in criminal justice and education sectors, compatible with multi-sectoral economic evaluations
How it works
Developed within Work Package 2 of the PECUNIA project (2018–2021), these standardized Reference Unit Cost (RUC) templates support multi-sectoral economic evaluations in mental health. Aligned with Deliverable D2.4, they provide harmonized resource-use measurement (RUM) instruments and unit costing frameworks for criminal justice and education sectors across six European countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, UK). The templates ensure cross-national comparability and are compatible with broader PECUNIA RUM modules.
- Project
- PECUNIA
- Funding
- Horizon 2020
- Project status
- Completed 2021
- HTA domains
- Costs & Economic Evaluation
- Categories
- Costing & Resource Use
- Assumptions
- Resource descriptions and costing methods can be harmonized across countries; data availability allows for comparable unit cost estimation; mental health interventions generate measurable impacts in non-health sectors
- Strengths
- Enables cross-country comparability; developed through a multi-national collaboration; focuses on spillover costs often neglected in traditional HTA; integrates with broader PECUNIA RUM instruments
- Limitations
- Limited to six European countries; applicability in non-European or low-income settings may be limited; dependent on local data availability and costing practices
- Also known as
- PECUNIA D2.4, Standardised costing template for selected costing approaches: criminal justice and education, PECUNIA RUC templates
Questions this answers
- › What resources are used in the criminal justice and education sectors due to mental health interventions?
- › How can unit costs in criminal justice and education be measured consistently across countries?
- › Which services should be included in cross-sectoral economic evaluations of mental health care?
- › How can resource use data be standardized for international health economic evaluations?
- › What valuation methods are recommended for non-health sector costs in mental health?
- › How can spillover costs from mental health care be captured in economic models?
References & sources
Similar by meaning
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