The socioeconomics of diabetes from a developing country: a population based cost of illness study

To assess the annual health care expenditure for a patient with diabetes and extrapolate the same to country specific prevalence estimates for 2010.

This population based, cost of illness study collected retrospective data for last 12 months on direct costs (medical and non-medical) through records, indirect cost through human capital approach and intangible cost by contingent valuation method from diabetes patients.

Out of 4677 subjects screened, 1050 had diabetes and 718 participated in the survey. The median annual direct and indirect cost associated with diabetes care was estimated at 25,391 INR ($525.5) and 4970 INR ($102.8), respectively. Extrapolating the direct and indirect estimates to Indian population, the annual costs for diabetes would be 1541.4 billion INR ($31.9 billion) in 2010. Two-way sensitivity analysis assuming 10% variation in both prevalence of diabetes and in treatment costs resulted in an estimated cost range of 1230 billion INR ($25.5 billion) to 1837.3 billion INR ($38.0 billion).

Keeping the future diabetes explosion in mind, this heavy economic burden highlights the urgent need for the decision makers to allocate resources for planning and implementing strategies in prevention and management of diabetes and its complications.