Targeting Health Behaviors to Reduce Health Care Costs in Pediatric Psychology: Descriptive Review and Recommendations

Objective Recent efforts to enhance the quality of health care in the United States while reducing costs have resulted in an increased emphasis on cost containment and the introduction of new pay-ment plans. The purpose of this review is to summarize the impact of pediatric health behavior change interventions on health care costs. Methods A review of PubMed, PsycINFO, and PEDE databases identified 15 articles describing the economic outcomes of pediatric health behavior change interventions. Data describing the intervention, health outcome, and economic outcome were extracted. Results All interventions targeting cigarette smoking (n 3) or the prevention of a chronic medical condition (n 5) were predicted to avert hundreds of dollars in health care costs per patient. Five of the seven interventions targeting self-management were associated with reduc-tions in health care costs. Conclusions Pediatric health behavior change interventions may be a valuable component of efforts to improve population health while reducing health care costs. Key words: health behavior; health care services; health policy. Following the expansion of health care coverage resulting from the Affordable Care Act (U.S