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Abstract
Objective To determine the health economic burden of epilepsy for Australians of working age by using life table modeling and to model whether improved seizure control may result in substantial health economic benefits.
Methods Life table modeling was used for working age Australians aged 15–69 years with epilepsy and the cohort was followed until age 70 years. Published 2017 population and epilepsy-related data regarding epilepsy prevalence, mortality, and productivity were used. This model was then re-simulated, assuming the cohort no longer had epilepsy. Differences in outcomes between these cohorts were attributed to epilepsy. Scenarios were also simulated in which the proportion of seizure-free patients increased from baseline 70% up to 75% and 80%.
Results In 2017, Australians of working age with epilepsy followed until age 70 years were predicted to experience over 14,000 excess deaths, more than 78,000 years of life lost, and over 146,000 productivity-adjusted life years lost due to epilepsy. This resulted in lost gross domestic product (GDP) of US $22.1 billion. Increasing seizure freedom by 5% and 10% would reduce health care costs, save years of life, and translate to US $2.6 billion and US $5.3 billion GDP retained for seizure freedom rates of 75% and 80%, respectively.
Conclusions Our study highlights the considerable societal and economic burden of epilepsy. Relatively modest improvements in overall seizure control could bring substantial economic benefits.
Glossary
- ABS=
- Australian Bureau of Statistics;
- CI=
- confidence interval;
- DRE=
- drug-resistant epilepsy;
- EFT=
- equivalent full time;
- GBD=
- Global Burden of Disease;
- GDP=
- gross domestic product;
- PALY=
- productivity-adjusted life year;
- SUDEP=
- sudden unexpected death in epilepsy;
- YLL=
- years of life lost
Footnotes
Go to Neurology.org/N for full disclosures. Funding information and disclosures deemed relevant by the authors, if any, are provided at the end of the article.
↵* These authors contributed equally to this work.
- Received April 30, 2020.
- Accepted in final form August 20, 2020.
- © 2020 American Academy of Neurology
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