Cardiovascular disease

European Union's 25 countries spend €169 billion

Countries in the European Union spent €169 billion in 2003 on cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to research from a team at the Health Economics Research Centre, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, England, just published on-line by the European Heart Journal.

This study is the first to assess the economic impact of CVD in the 25 EU member states.
The CVD healthcare cost to each man, woman and child in the EU is estimated to be €230, (USA estimate: €715 per head) which took up 12% of all the healthcare expenditure, accounted for 126 million hospital bed days, 268.5 million working days lost and severely hampered the daily activities of 4.4 million people - one in every 100 EU citizens.

The two million deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD) in 2003 represented €24.4 billion of the total bill and a loss of 2.18 million working years.

The analysis covered total healthcare estimates - primary, outpatient, emergency and in-patient care and medication - plus the costs of unpaid care and lost earnings due to illness and premature death.

In-patient care accounted for €60 billion (57%) of the healthcare costs. Pharmaceutical expenditure at €28.4 billion represented 27%, with primary, outpatient and emergency care absorbing 16%.
A breakdown of the contributions that the various types of CVD made to the total costs showed that coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease accounted for nearly two thirds of all CVD deaths and 47% of costs. So, other CVDs, such as high blood pressure or other forms of heart disease, contributed an even higher proportion to the economic burden, the researchers report.
The study also revealed the hidden costs of informal care for the first time - an estimated €29 billion with 2.98 million CVD sufferers receiving 2.95 billion hours help from unpaid carers. Around 1,375 million people were involved in providing unpaid care to patients with coronary heart disease or cerebrovascular disease alone.

The study identified considerable variations between countries in the overall burden of CVD and the percentage CVD took up of each country’s total healthcare expenditure (see box).
The researchers emphasised that the aim of the study was not to judge whether countries were spending too much or too little relative to others, its real use is to enable comparisons to be made within countries, and the EU as a whole, of the burden imposed by different diseases. ‘This should help potentially to prioritise scarce resources.’

There have been few cost-of-illness studies evaluating the impact of other diseases in the enlarged EU, although estimates for diabetes range from €32 to €61 billion.