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Medical care expenditures for hypertension, its complications, and its comorbidities

T A Hodgson1, L Cai

  • 1Office of Analysis, Epidemiology and Health Promotion, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. THodgson@cdc.gov

Medical Care
|June 19, 2001
PubMed

Insights

Hypertension cost the US $108.8 billion in 2018, with most spending on related conditions, not hypertension itself. Lifestyle changes and medical interventions can significantly reduce these substantial national health expenditures.

Area of Science:

  • Health Economics
  • Public Health
  • Cardiovascular Disease Research

Background:

  • Hypertension is a major public health concern with significant economic implications.
  • Estimating the full medical cost of hypertension requires accounting for direct, indirect, and comorbidity-related expenditures.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To estimate the total, per capita, and per condition medical expenditures attributed to hypertension in the US in 1998.
  • To disaggregate these expenditures by sex, age, and type of health service.
  • To analyze the proportion of spending on hypertension, its complications, and comorbidities.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized national health expenditure data from 1998.
  • Employed attributable risk analysis to determine expenditures for cardiovascular complications and other related conditions.
  • Applied regression analyses to estimate additional costs associated with comorbidities.

Main Results:

  • Total health care spending attributed to hypertension in 1998 was $108.8 billion, representing 12.6% of allocable national health spending.
  • Direct hypertension costs were $22.8 billion, cardiovascular complications $29.7 billion, and other diagnoses $56.4 billion.
  • Per capita spending increased with age, and expenditures were generally higher for females.

Conclusions:

  • The economic burden of hypertension is substantial, with direct treatment costs being only a portion of the total attributed expenditures.
  • Comprehensive cost accounting is crucial for accurately assessing hypertension's economic impact and potential savings from interventions.
  • Lifestyle modifications and medical interventions offer significant opportunities to reduce national health expenditures related to hypertension.
Abstract

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