Economic Burden of Disease

The issue of the economic burden of disease includes three disciplines, namely: health economics, pharmaceutical economics, and hospital economics. A study of economic burden can use one of two perspectives. The first is a prevalence-based approach and the second approach is incident based. The economic burden of disease is divided into two categories, direct costs and indirect costs. The proportion of direct and indirect costs may vary depending on the patient's suffering. In older patients, generally the direct costs are the largest cost component because these people are already not very productive economically. Indirect costs are also related to the sociological role of a sufferer of disease. The sociological role in turn becomes the basis for the sick behavior of a person. A stigma is any social construction related to categories of people based on attributes and characteristics that bring shame or neglect. There are three types of stigma in the community: physical deformity stigma, character assassination, and prejudice.