[Societals costs of trauma]

Knowing the costs of trauma aids in making informed decisions about investments to prevent and treat trauma.

To provide an overview of the potential societal costs of psychological problems caused by traumatic experiences.

Using a narrative review based on the available literature on PTSD and adverse childhood events (ACEs), we estimated the possible societal costs for the Netherlands. We used literature on the domains of wellbeing, healthcare, education and labour, crime and justice, and intergenerational transfers.

We estimated that costs due to loss of wellbeing may span from tens of millions to several billion euros annually for the Netherlands. Healthcare costs and costs due to lower educational attainment and reduced labor productivity were likely to amount to hundreds of millions of euros annually. Other domains were not quantifiable given current knowledge.

Although societal costs cannot completely reliably be determined with current literature, there are reasons to assume that these costs can be significant. Investments in prevention and effective treatment could therefore lead to significant savings.