A menu with prices: Annual per person costs of programs addressing community integration

• Guidance on costs and program characteristics for evaluating and planning programs addressing community integration are scarce.
• Community integration refers to the opportunity and legal right for people with disabilities to live in the community and be valued for one's uniqueness and abilities.
• A total of 64 out of 483 community integration programs were successfully recruited to complete a comprehensive online survey designed to capture annual per participant cost (APPC) data, representing the largest known study of costs of community integration programs.
• Psychosocial rehabilitation programs, those with one or more evidence-based practices, the number of paid employees and the percent of costs going to direct care are moderately associated with APPC.
• Evaluators and program planners can use the findings as a first step toward matching community integration programs to their resources and objectives.

Information on costs of programs addressing community integration for persons with serious mental illness in the United States, essential for program planning and evaluation, is largely lacking. To address this knowledge gap, community integration programs identified through directories and snowball sampling were sent an online survey addressing program costs and organizational attributes. 64 Responses were received for which annual per person costs (APPC) could be computed. Programs were categorized by type of services provided. Program types differed in median APPCs, though median APPCs identified were consistent with the ranges identified in the limited literature available. Multiple regression was used to identify organizational variables underlying APPCs such as psychosocial rehabilitation program type, provision of EBPs, number of volunteers, and percentage of budget spent on direct care staff, though effects sizes were moderate at best. This study adds tentative prices to the menu of community integration programs, and the implications of these findings for choosing, designing and evaluating programs addressing community integration are discussed.