The main aim of this report was to give an overview of "social impact measurement" in the field of child and adolescence health. We focused on Social Return on Investment (SROI) analyses, and cost-benefit analyses as well. The inclusion criteria for searching and including studies were kept relatively broad, the focus was on interventions for children and adolescent aged 0-18 years. In the end, 18 studies on 15 programmes were included. For eight programmes, cost-benefit analyses (CBA) were identified and for six programmes SROIs were conducted. For one intervention both a CBA and an SROI were calculated.

The methodological justification and the used methods to identify outcomes of the studies varied greatly. First, the methods were determined by the respective analysis (SROI or CBA). The chosen outcomes to measure the benefits and impacts were mainly effectiveness-related and were collected from the programmes in a short term and then monetised and estimated for the future. Only in some cases the participants were followed up for a long time period of 10 years and more. In a few studies though, the benefits were estimated based on literature. Moreover, the determination of the benefits and impacts – either directly or indirectly – was done using a vast range of outcomes.

The interventional costs for the programmes varied between 669 and 72,167 Euros per participant. Avoided costs in the field of "education" varied between 665 and 11,031 Euros, e.g. due to higher graduation rates. A total of 596-76,430 Euros were saved in the area of "economic status/earnings", e.g. due to higher salaries (and therefore higher tax payments). For "health care/health services", the benefits were between -619 Euros and 10,087 Euros (the negative value means that the costs were higher than the benefits), e.g. due to better health or less spending for treatments. The benefits in "social services/welfare" were 240-11,182 Euros, e.g. due to less child neglect. And finally, the savings in the area of "crime/justice" were 508-79,134 Euros, e.g. due to fewer criminal activities or police contacts.

Across all studies, a positive return on investment of 1.19 to 23.5 in average was calculated. In one study (vaccination of hepatitis B) however, the return was 0.91 after 20 years, but after 68 years, it was 2.47 (the average return was 1.69).

Overall, the identified studies showed a high variation in the applied methods and results. In addition, the evaluated interventions were very inconsistent. Furthermore, the results of the studies highly depended on the respective methodological approach.