Background Drowning is the leading cause of death among children under 16 in Viet Nam with nearly 2,000 lives lost every year. The National Program on Child Injury Prevention for the period from 2021 to 2030 with a target to reduce the rate of child drowning deaths by 20%. In an attempt to save children’s lives, since 2018, Bloomberg Philanthropies, together with Global Health Advocacy Incubator, leading Ministry of Labor- Invalids and Social Affairs launched the world class interventiosn of survival swim for nearly 32,000 children aged 6–15 years in 12 highest burden provinces. The rate of children who can swim is increased from 14.7% to 32.6% after 5 year interventions. The child drowning ratio is significantly reduced by 30% in intervention locations.

Objective It’s critical to perform a cost-benefit analysis for child drowning prevention programs. Given the lack of study on the consequences of child drowning deaths, especially in developing countries, our study aims to shed light on the economic costs of survival swim interventions from both parents’ and society’s perspectives. By capturing the damage systematically and coherently, we can evaluate the effectiveness of currently implemented intervention model.

Method The economic analysis of survival swim intervention is based on an established framework ‘cost of illness’. It takes into account both direct costs and indirect costs. While direct cost refers to child-raising and accident-related expenditure, indirect costs are concerned with the work productivity loss of both victims and their families. Econometric models and valuation of life loss applied to capture total cost from secondary data (ie., Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey, Global Burden of Disease).

Results Our modelling result informs policymakers on the societal cost of survival swim which gives them an urgent need to take action against this silent epidemic. Having rigorous and scientific-based evidence, policymakers can decide for further investment for this cost effective interventions and scaling up at the national level.

Conclusions Ongoing data analysis stage, research results revealed in the second quarter of 2024. It brings the solid evidence for Viet Nam policy development and potential adaption for other low and middle income countries.