Background

Alternative responses to behavioral health emergencies are increasingly common interventions to address the overrepresentation of people with mental illness in the criminal legal and health systems. We compared costs associated with receiving a crisis response from police-as-usual versus a police-mental health co-response team that occurred as part of a randomized controlled trial.

Methods

Eligible 911 calls-for-service were randomized to receive a police-as-usual or a co-response. Next, we record-linked randomized events to emergency medical services, jail, outpatient services, and emergency department data to assess outcomes. We calculated per-person costs of service utilization following the randomized event from a public-sector perspective.

Results

Our analysis revealed no cost-savings from the co-response. Persons who received a co-response team response had greater 12-month post-randomized incident costs associated with outpatient behavioral health encounters and emergency department visits.

Conclusions

Rigorous evaluations and cost analyses are important for determining whether alternative police response interventions achieve community goals.

中文翻译：

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警察与心理健康共同应对计划的经济评估：来自务实随机对照试验的数据

 背景

针对行为健康紧急情况的替代应对措施已成为日益常见的干预措施，以解决刑事法律和卫生系统中精神疾病患者比例过高的问题。我们比较了像往常一样接受警察危机应对和作为随机对照试验一部分的警察-心理健康共同应对小组的相关成本。

 方法

符合条件的 911 呼叫服务被随机分配，以接受警察的常规回应或共同回应。接下来，我们记录与紧急医疗服务、监狱、门诊服务和急诊科数据相关的随机事件，以评估结果。我们从公共部门的角度计算了随机事件后的人均服务利用成本。

 结果

我们的分析表明，共同应对并没有节省成本。接受共同响应小组响应的人在 12 个月的随机事件后费用与门诊行为健康遭遇和急诊科就诊相关。

 结论

严格的评估和成本分析对于确定替代性警察应对干预措施是否实现社区目标非常重要。