Assessing the economic burden of injuries due to accidents: methodological problems illustrated with some examples from the literature

Abstract

SummaryThis paper provides a survey of methodological problems encountered in an a& sessment of the economic consequences of accidents in The Netherlands. A sound epldemkkgkal basls for such calculatbns appears to be lacking due to Inadequate data-reglstratbn systems. We also dlscuss some studles of the economic costs of lnjurbs due to accidents for other countries, whkh have used elther a prevalence or an lncldence-based approach. lt Is highlighted that they may bs helpful In Indicating the relative economk burden possd on society but that they cannot gulde prlorlty setting ln health care resource allocation. Economic evaluatbn studlss using Incidence-based scenario comparisons may be more promising In that respect.

Economic burden of hepatitis C in Canada and the potential impact of prevention

“…The ap proach is ap pro pri ate for es ti mat ing the ef fects of chang ing ei ther the in ci dence of dis ease or dis ease pro gres sion [9]. Thus esti mates of the bur den of dis ease from an in ci dence-ap proach can pro vide a ba sis for es ti mat ing the cost ef fec tive ness of inter ven tions [7,10,11,12]. This has been argued to be more ap pro pri ate with re spect to pre ven tion rather than treat ment of disease [13] and for the eval u a tion of al ter native health care pro grams [14].…”