Glossary

We did not find any studies of moderate or high quality that studied the program’s effect on a given outcome. These programs require further study to support conclusions about their effectiveness.

Provision of direct, ongoing support to program participants before, during, or after employment or training. Case management may involve assessing participants’ needs, connecting participants to services (including public benefits), coordination of service referrals, helping participants meet program requirements, and providing personalized, sustained assistance.

People served by public benefits programs or initiatives that provide a direct payment of cash, including TANF.

Payments designed to provide participants with an income or strategies to help participants retain their income.

Child support provides monetary payments made by a non-custodial parent to the custodial parent to supplement the financial costs of raising the child. Child support assistance may include supporting custodial parents with applying for child support; providing education about child support to noncustodial parents; working with the child support program or the custodial parent to modify child support orders; providing assistance to consolidate petitions on multiple child support cases; and/or helping to reduce penalties for arrears.

Direct program assistance, including Head Start and Early Head Start programs or other early childhood programs, as well as cash or vouchers that assist in the education or care of children (e.g., childcare vouchers provided by TANF).

A group with characteristics ideally similar to those of program group members, except that those in the comparison group do not have an opportunity to receive the services of interest. The comparison group is intended to represent what would have happened to members of the program group if they had not been offered the services from the program of interest.

A factor that might affect how well a program works and that applies differently to the program and comparison groups. Because this factor can affect one group and not the other, the presence of a confounding factor causes us to question a study’s findings. One type of confounding factor is an element external to the program that reaches only the members of one study group—for instance, if all members of the program group lived in one state and all members of the comparison group lived in another state. In this case, it would be impossible to separate the effect of the program or policy from that of local economic conditions.

A systematic method for identifying and documenting the quantity, quality, and economic value, as represented by opportunity costs, of all resources such as personnel, materials, equipment, and facilities used to implement and operate a program. The analysis often categorizes costs according to resource type, program component, and implementation phase, and investigates the sensitivity of cost estimates by varying key assumptions.

A type of cost study that compares the present discounted monetary values of program costs and outcomes (also referred to as benefit-cost analysis).

A comparative analysis in which two or more alternative means of obtaining the same objective are assessed based on their costs per unit of effectiveness. Because CEA is comparative, a program can be considered cost-effective only relative to something else.