ABSTRACT
Cost of illness studies aim to quantify the burden of disease by expressing it in monetary terms. Although these studies are popular with the pharmaceutical industry who use them to highlight the importance of a particular disease area, many health economists remain unconvinced of their value. The economic cost of an illness can help to determine research priorities, but should not be used to allocate resources unless it can be demonstrated that cost effective interventions can lower the economic burden. Cost of illness or economic burden of illness studies offer an alternative perspective on the importance of diseases compared with other epidemiological indicators such as morbidity and mortality. Many illnesses create a burden for patients, their families and society, and cost of illness studies aim to quantify this burden by measuring all the costs of a particular disease in monetary terms.
