Drug-related morbidity is an important public health concern, but knowledge about its economic impact is limited to hospitals. Thus, important consequences to the general public may have been overlooked. The aim of the thesis is to estimate the economic impact of drug-related morbidity in Sweden. Specific aims are to estimate the cost-of-illness of drug-related morbidity in Sweden based on phar...

BACKGROUND Predicting health care costs for individuals and populations is essential for managing care. However, the comparative power of diagnostic and drug data for predicting future costs has not been closely examined. OBJECTIVE We sought to compare the predictive performance of claims-based models using diagnoses, drugs claims, and combined data to predict health care costs. SUBJECTS Mo...

OBJECTIVE This study provides a cost-benefit analysis of preemployment drug screening and evaluates the sensitivity of this analysis to variation in its underlying assumptions. DESIGN Cost-benefit analysis, based on a cohort analytic study previously reported. SETTING Employees of the US Postal Service in Boston, Mass. PARTICIPANTS Estimates of costs and benefit are based on a cohort of 2...

In the US prescription drug costs are rising faster than any other component of health care expenditures, and show no signs of slowing. Spending on prescription drugs has been estimated by the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA) to be rising by approximately 12% per year, more than twice the rate for national health care expenditures (5.1%). Factors driving the rise in prescription drug c...

OBJECTIVES To calculate total costs during the first year after diagnosis in 463 patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) included during 2006-09 (T2) and compare the results with a similar cohort included in 1996-98 (T1). METHOD Clinical and laboratory data were collected regularly in both cohorts, and patients completed biannual questionnaires reporting health care utilization and numb...

BACKGROUND: The costs of substance abuse in the USA are enormous and varied. Seldom are they comprehensively assessed. A new study jointly published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA) has done just this. AIMS: Researchers for the economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse in the United States, 1992 used systematic cost-...

Since the advent of coronary angioplasty in 1977, the procedure has changed from an uncommonly used method of treating simple discrete lesions1 to one that challenges surgical revascularization.2 Step by step, major anatomic obstacles have fallen as this procedure has been applied to an expanding patient population. Technical breakthroughs including steerable and movable guidewires, low-profile...