Cost of illness: A critical review of estimation methodologies

Nadia Ripari, Nebel Moscoso and María Elorza

Lecturas de Economía, 2012, issue 77, 253-282

Abstract: Studies on the cost of illness arise to advance knowledge and estimation of the economic burden of disease. These identify, quantify and value all the economic resources linked to a disease, and classify them as direct, indirect and intangible costs. The aim of this paper is to critically describe the different methods for estimating each of these costs. The valuation of the costs of an illness involves a vector of prices and quantities. The quantities arise from the resources used or lost. Prices are estimated from the market value of the good or service or, if it is a non-market good or service, then prices are estimated from proxy variables or specific methods of estimation of individual preferences. The main methodological and theoretical weaknesses found deal with the estimation of the ‘time’ resource, the presence of externalities and market imperfections and the violation of some assumptions of economic theory.

Keywords: Cost of Illness; Estimation Methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://revistas.udea.edu.co/index.php/lecturasdeeconomia/issue/view/1332 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lde:journl:y:2012:i:77:p:253-282

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Lecturas de Economía, Departamento de Economía, Calle 67, 53-108, Medellin 050010, Colombia.

Access Statistics for this article

Lecturas de Economía is currently edited by Carlos Andrés Vasco Correa

More articles in Lecturas de Economía from Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Carlos Andrés Vasco Correa ().