Costs of hay fever in the United States in 1990.

Hay fever, or allergic rhinitis, affects a significant proportion of the US population. The current analysis focuses on the question of estimating both the direct and indirect costs of hay fever in the US for 1990. The basic data used for this analysis derive from continuing national probability surveys of 1) the US civilian noninstitutionalized population and 2) patient visits to offices of nonfederal practicing physicians who are not in hospital-based specialties. The analysis is based on current methods of estimating the costs of illness. The two major components of the estimates are the direct costs of physician visits, diagnostic tests, and medications; and the indirect costs associated with work absences or other reduced productivity for those employed both in and outside the home. For the most part where data were unavailable or potentially unreliable, cost estimates were not imputed. As a result, these estimates should be considered to be biased downward. In spite of these relatively conservative assumptions, the estimates of annual illness costs for 1990 totalled $1.8 billion.