The economic costs of health service treatments for asbestos-related mesothelioma deaths

Citation

Watterson A, Gorman T, Malcolm C, Robinson M & Beck M (2006) The economic costs of health service treatments for asbestos-related mesothelioma deaths. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1076, pp. 871-881. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1371.042

Abstract
ABSTRACT: This article explores the complex and neglected picture of occupational and environmental disease healthcare costs specifically relating to asbestos. Diagnosed mesothelioma cases in Scotland in one calendar year were used to investigate the subject in greater depth. Data from UK sources on asbestos disease types recorded in 2000 and their disease treatment costs were obtained. Acute care economic costs of these diseases are estimated. One hundred and twenty diagnosed, recorded, and treated cases of asbestos-related diseases occurred in 2000 in Scotland. Mesothelioma accounted for 100 cases and directly cost Scottish National Health Service hospitals an estimated £942,038. The estimated UK figure in 2000 was at least £16,014,646 because official figures for diagnosed and recorded deaths from mesothelioma are running at over 1700 a year with rises predicted for 2010 of 2000 deaths. By 2003, 50,000 people in the UK had died from diagnosed and recorded mesothelioma since records began. Earlier disease treatment costs would have been significantly lower than those in 2000 but, at 2000 prices, cost to the UK was roughly £471,019,000 in acute hospital expenditure. Figures for primary care costs, including caregiver costs, are incomplete or unknown. These disease costs are substantial and have some international generalizability.

Keywords
asbestos; mesothelioma; hospital economic costs; health care costs; Cancer Prevention Governement policy Scotland 21st century; Asbestos industry Health aspects; Mesothelioma Environmental aspects Scotland; Hospitals Scotland Cost of operation

Journal
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences: Volume 1076