The Impact of Comorbidity of Mental and Physical Conditions on Role Disability in the US Adult Household Population

Abstract

As health care spending in the United States continues to rise,¹ it will be increasingly necessary to make thoughtful decisions regarding resource allocation. Such choices should be based on accurate information about the individual and population costs of particular conditions as well as the cost-effectiveness of specific interventions for these conditions. Costs of illness include direct treatment costs and indirect costs related to morbidity and mortality. Although direct costs can readily be measured through transactional billing data, limited systematic information exists on indirect costs either at the individual level (eg, impaired functioning in work and social roles, family burden)^2,3 or at the societal level (eg, lost productivity, workers' compensation).^4,5 The absence of indirect cost data leads to unrealistically low estimates of the total costs of illness because available evidence suggests that indirect costs make up a substantial part of these overall costs.^6-8