The Economic Burden of Chronic Diseases: Estimates and Projections for China, Japan and South Korea

David Bloom, Simiao Chen, Michael Kuhn, Mark McGovern, Les Oxley and Klaus Prettner
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Simiao Chen: Harvard School of Public Health

No 10896, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We propose a novel framework to analyse the macroeconomic impact of non-communicable diseases. We incorporate measures of disease prevalence into a human capital augmented production function, which enables us to determine the economic costs of chronic health conditions in terms of foregone gross domestic product (GDP). Unlike previously adopted frameworks, this approach allows us to account for i) variations in human capital for workers in different age groups, ii) mortality and morbidity effects of non-communicable diseases, and iii) the treatment costs of diseases. We apply our methodology to China, Japan, and South Korea, and estimate the economic burden of chronic conditions in five domains (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, respiratory diseases, diabetes, and mental health conditions). Overall, total losses associated with these non-communicable diseases over the period 2010-2030 are $16 trillion for China (measured in real USD with the base year 2010), $5.7 trillion for Japan, and $1.5 trillion for South Korea. Our results also highlight the limits of cost-effectiveness analysis by identifying some intervention strategies to reduce disease prevalence in China that are cost beneficial and therefore a rational use of resources, though they are not cost-effective as judged by conventional thresholds.

Keywords: health interventions; human capital; non-communicable diseases; aggregate output; ageing; East Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 I15 I18 J24 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-hea and nep-sea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Journal of the Economics of Ageing, 2020, 17, 100163

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Related works:
Journal Article: The economic burden of chronic diseases: Estimates and projections for China, Japan, and South Korea (2020)
Working Paper: The Economic Burden of Chronic Diseases: Estimates and Projections for China, Japan, and South Korea (2017)
Working Paper: The economic burden of chronic diseases: Estimates and projections for China, Japan, and South Korea (2017)
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