Print“Interventions in this area will undeniably be costly. But inaction is likely to be far more costly.”
Non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes now account for 63 percent of deaths worldwide. But if the human toll hasn’t been enough to convince policymakers about the importance of investing in preventive measures, a new report seeks to make an economic case saying it will cost more than $30 trillion over the next 20 years.
The report from the World Economic Health Forum and the Harvard School of Public Health notes that 80 percent of deaths from non-communicable diseases now occur in low- and middle-income countries with half of those deaths occurring in people who are in the prime of their productive life. The authors say the lives that are being lost are “also endangering industry competitiveness across borders.”
“The health community and the business community are both concerned about the burden of NCDs and its likely growth in coming decades,” the report says. “By contrast, this issue is just barely on the radar screen of economic policy-makers, who most often do not see that NCDs pose a threat to development, economic growth, and poverty alleviation.”
By expressing the burden of non-communicable disease in dollar terms, the authors say they hope to provide economic leaders the ability to consider the toll these diseases take collectively in terms with which they are well accustomed.
The researchers applied three different approaches to calculating the economic burden of the most common non-communicable diseases. In addition, they included mental illness, which they say is a major contributor to the economic burden of disease worldwide. The different approaches produced differing results and relied on estimates of many variables, but they argue the results give a sense of the economic burden.
In terms of lost output, the researchers said the five conditions (cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, and mental health) over the next 20 years will total $47 trillion.
Alternatively, the economic burden from the loss of life due to all non-communicable disease will range between $22.8 trillion to $43.3 trillion.
A third approach, based on the cost of illness, calculates estimated cost for the five disease categories:
| Disease | 2010 | 2 030 |
| Cancer | $ 290 | $ 458 |
| Cardiovascular | $ 836 | $1,040 |
| COPD | $2,100 | $4,800 |
| Diabetes | $ 500 | $ 745 |
| Metal Illness | $2,500 | $6,000 |
The authors say addressing the problem will require getting people to take steps to make dietary changes, increase physical activity, stop smoking, and avoid the harmful use of alcohol. It will also be important to shift medical training to reflect the changing disease burden in low- and middle-income countries to improve prevention and management of these conditions. They note the participation of a wide range of stakeholders will be necessary with the private sector having a key role to play not only in developing new products to diagnose, prevent, and treat these diseases, but also to market healthier products.
“Economic policy-makers are naturally concerned about economic growth. The evidence presented in this report indicates that it would be illogical and irresponsible to care about economic growth and simultaneously ignore NCDs,” the authors conclude. “Interventions in this area will undeniably be costly. But inaction is likely to be far more costly.”
September 22, 2011
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-report_says_non_communicable_diseases_pose_threat_to_economic_health.html
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