Medical costs and economic production losses due to injuries in the Netherlands.

BACKGROUND

To support injury control, we assessed the direct medical costs and indirect costs of injuries in the Netherlands, making use of recent advances in health economics.

METHODS

We estimated the direct medical costs with the help of available data on health care utilization as a consequence of injuries. In our calculations of indirect costs, we used two alternative approaches. We used the traditional human-capital approach, which estimates the potential economic production losses caused by diseases or injuries. In addition, we applied the friction-costs method, which was recently developed as an attempt to measure the actual economic production losses to society.

RESULTS

Injuries are an important source of medical costs and economic production losses. Almost two-thirds of the medical costs are the result of injuries among females (mainly domestic injuries of elderly women). On the contrary, independent of the method used, more than 80% of the indirect costs are the result of injuries among males (mainly caused by a high frequency of traffic injuries, occupational injuries, and sports injuries among young males). The application of the friction-costs method confirms the importance of injuries as a source of production losses in comparison with other diseases, showing that they belong to the main three causes of indirect costs to society.

CONCLUSIONS

Estimates of the medical costs and both the potential and actual economic production losses to society clearly demonstrate that injuries should be a major concern for health policy makers and the medical profession.