Food allergy is associated with higher health care costs. Severity of allergic symptoms is a key explanatory factor.

Objectives. To develop a questionnaire to measure the additional social costs of food allergies (FAs Key Words. Health economics, survey and research design, health care costs, chronic disease, EuroPrevall, food allergies Very little is known about the socioeconomic consequences of food allergies (FAs). These may stretch beyond the individuals with FAs to other family members, households, and to other sectors in society. Policy makers require information about the socioeconomic consequences of FAs in order to develop appropriate and cost-effective regulatory frameworks regarding consumer protection and to make decisions concerning the provision of health care r Health Research and Educational Trust

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Food allergy has potential to affect direct, indirect and intangible economic costs experienced by food allergic individuals and their families, resulting in negative impacts on welfare and well-being. The purpose of this paper is to develop an instrument to assess these economic costs of food allergy at household level and to conduct an exploratory analysis of potential economic impact. Design/methodology/approach -A case-controlled postal pilot survey was conducted using a self-completion instrument. Cases had either clinically or self-diagnosed food allergy. Controls were obtained from households in which none of the members had food allergies. Findings -The instrument appeared sensitive to the economic cost differences between households with and without food allergic members. Direct costs of health care were significantly higher for cases than for controls. Similar differences were identified for indirect cost of lost earnings, and costs due to inability to perform domestic tasks because of ill health. Intangible costs (self-reported health status and well-being), indicated significantly lower subjective well-being for cases. Research limitations/implications -Larger sample sizes will be needed to reliably assess the size of impact, cross-cultural variation in costs, and whether costs vary according to severity of food allergy or between diagnosed versus self-reported food allergy. The costs effectiveness of diagnostic methods or interventions may also be assessed using this instrument. If economic costs of food allergy are significant in the population further consideration from a public health policy perspective will be required.

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