Friday, June 27, 2008

[EQ] Economic costs of ill health in the European Region

Economic costs of ill health in the European Region

 

Marc Suhrcke, Regina Sauto Arce, Martin McKee and Lorenzo Rocco

 

World Health Organization and World Health Organization, on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies 2008

 

Available online as PDF file [26p.] at:

http://www.euro.who.int/document/hsm/1_hsc08_eBD1.pdf

 

“….Evidence on the economic costs of ill health (or, reversely, the benefits of good health) is essential in assessing the economic return on health investment. But

understanding what those costs/benefits mean and how they should be measured is equally essential. Public policy discourse on the economic consequences/costs of ill health has been handicapped by considerable confusion about what the term means. Noting that without an a priori definition of the cost concept at issue no meaningful discourse can ensue, we address three economic concepts.


1. The broadest, most relevant concept is social welfare costs/benefits, which attempts to capture the value people place on better health.

2. The more limited but more tangible concept, micro and macroeconomic costs, looks at, for instance, the foregone earnings of
    individuals/households and the GDP losses countries incur, respectively, due to the ill health of a household member or the national population.

3. The most limited but nevertheless widely applied cost concept looks at the additional health-care expenditures that may be associated with ill health….”

 

 

Contents

Key messages

Executive summary

Economic costs of ill health in the European Region

1. Introduction

2. Broad perspective: social welfare costs

3. Limited perspective: micro- and macroeconomic costs

3.1 Microeconomic costs

3.2 Macroeconomic costs

4. Very limited perspective: health-care costs

5. Concluding remarks

References

 

Also:

 

 Performance measurement for health system improvement: experiences, challenges and prospects (Summary) [pdf, 437KB]

Smith PC, Mossialos E, Leatherman S, Papanicolas I, eds. WHO/Europe, 2008

available in: fr[pdf, 334KB], de[pdf, 446KB], ru[pdf, 572KB]

 

Health systems, health and wealth – Assessing the case for investing in health systems (Summmary) [pdf, 568KB]

. Figueras J, McKee M, Lessof S, Duran A, Menabde N, eds. WHO/Europe, 2008

available in: fr[pdf, 105KB], de[pdf, 94KB], ru[pdf, 1MB]

 

 

 

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