Abstract
While there is a significant body of work focussing on the physical burden of chronic diseases and related health care costs, considerably less attention has been given to the indirect costs i.e. costs beyond those to the health system. Premature retirement due to ill health is a significant economic burden both to individuals in terms of lost income and savings and the government in terms of lost taxation revenue and increased welfare payments. These costs are likely to increase in future with an ageing workforce and increasing trends in some of the disease prevalence. In this presentation, Dr Shrestha will present the immediate and the long-term impacts of ill health on early retirement and the associated economic costs based on the economic models developed for Australia and the savings that could be made by managing chronic conditions. The results highlight the need for effective prevention and/or treatment of illness to reduce the economic burden of chronic diseases.
About Dr Rupendra Shrestha
Dr Rupendra Shrestha is a Senior Research Fellow within Health Economics group at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney. He has a PhD in Epidemiology and Population Health from the Australian National University and a Masters in Statistics from the University of Auckland. He has developed a research program on the application of statistical methods for complex microsimulation models applied to health. He has been developing large scale economic models to analyse the economic costs of chronic conditions both from the healthcare perspective and the societal perspective. He is a member of a multidisciplinary team undertaking pioneering work on the impacts of ill health on labour force participation in Australia and the flow-on impacts on government and the economy. He is also working in the field of genomics, examining the cost benefit and economic impacts of genetic sequencing. He has co-authored more than 70 peer reviewed papers, a book chapter and eight commissioned reports.
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