As people choose not to vaccinate their children — or themselves — previously rare health conditions are becoming more common and placing an economic burden on the healthcare system.
An article published in Health Affairs outlines how much vaccine-preventable diseases are costing the United States each year. The researchers calculated the cost by examining the economic burden attributable to vaccine-preventable diseases among adults in the United States. Here are five things to know:
1. The estimated economic burden is $9 billion, ranging from $4.7 billion to $15.2 billion in 2015 related to 10 vaccine-preventable diseases among adults. The 10 vaccines studied were:
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis B
• Herpes zoster
• Human papillomavirus
• Influenza
• Tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis
• Varicella
• Measles, mumps and rubella
• Meningococcal disease
• Pneumococcal disease
2. Unvaccinated individuals represented around 80 percent of the financial burden, equaling around $7.1 billion.
3. CDC estimates around 42 percent of adults received the influenza vaccine for 2015 to 2016, with low vaccine uptake equating to death, disability and economic loss from hospitalizations and physician visits.
4. It was estimated the inpatient cost for influenza was $5,770 per hospitalized case; each hospitalized case of meningococcal disease reached $15,600. Outpatient costs reached $108 for influenza and $457 for meningococcal per case. Most of the inpatient estimated burden — 95 percent — was direct costs; $5.9 billion was the estimated cost for inpatient treatment.
5. The productivity loss per patient for inpatient cases of the mumps reached $122; for tetanus costs reached $580. Outpatient productivity loss ranged from $29 to $154 per case, with HPV-related cancers on the high end due to additional follow-up visits. The estimated direct cost for outpatient treatment was $2.4 billion.
6. For patients who died of vaccine-preventable diseases, the value of their loss was estimated at $176 billion.