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Production losses associated with premature mortality in 28 European Union countries

BACKGROUND: There has been a growing interest in the economic burden of mortality; however, a majority of evidence is concerned with particular diseases. Less is known on the overall cost of all-cause early deaths, principally in international context. Therefore, this study aims to estimate producti...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Łyszczarz, Błażej
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Edinburgh University Global Health Society 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6790234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31656606
http://dx.doi.org/10.7189/jogh.09.020418
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: There has been a growing interest in the economic burden of mortality; however, a majority of evidence is concerned with particular diseases. Less is known on the overall cost of all-cause early deaths, principally in international context. Therefore, this study aims to estimate production losses of premature mortality across 28 European Union (EU-28) countries in 2015. METHODS: The human capital method was applied to estimate the production losses (indirect costs) of all-cause deaths occurring at working age. The sex- and age-specific data on the number of deaths were taken from Eurostat’s database and a set of labour market measures was used to determine time of work during whole lifespan in particular countries. RESULTS: The total production losses of all-cause premature mortality in EU-28 in 2015 were €174.6 billion, adjusted for purchasing power parity. The per capita production losses associated with early deaths were €342.39 for the whole EU-28 population on average; Lithuania experienced the highest per capita burden (€643.68), while the average costs were lowest in Greece (€188.69). These figures translated to an economic burden of 1.179% of gross domestic product in EU-28 and this share ranged from 0.679% in Luxembourg to 3.176% in Latvia. Most of the losses were due to men’s deaths and the proportion of losses associated with male mortality ranged from 64.7% in the Netherlands to 81.2% in Poland. CONCLUSIONS: Premature mortality is a considerable economic burden for European societies; however, the production losses associated with early deaths vary notably in particular countries.