[Evaluation on the indirect economic burden of stroke using combination of disability-adjusted life years and human capital method].
OBJECTIVE
Using the indirect economic burden of stroke in a rural population to develop rational allocation of future health resources, in Hanzhong area.


METHODS
Cluster sampling which involved 53 natural villages with a total number of 75,000 people selected from the 'stroke monitoring base' of rural population was adopted in this study in the Hanzhong area. All of the 164 stroke cases were studied through a self-designed questionnaire. In calculating disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), fixed value was used in accordance with the value of GBD. The disability assessment was simplified in DALYs calculation and modified Barthel's ADL was used in disability assessment of stroke patients. In indirect economic burden analysis, the human capital method combined with DALYs was adopted with the formula as: indirect economic burden = GNP per capita x DALYs x productivity weight.


RESULTS
The total DALYs were 598.88, with an average DALY of stroke as 3.65 per case. The total indirect economic burden of stroke patients in rural areas was 1,993,977.8 RMB and the average of indirect economic burden of stroke was 12,158.4 RMB per case with the largest seen in the 45-59 age group, accounted for 74.4%.


CONCLUSIONS
In our study, the use of method in combining the human capital with DALYs was the first time being adopted in calculation of the indirect economic burden of stroke in rural population in China. The burden seemed to be much lower than literature cited from other countries. It was reasonable to evaluate indirect economic burden of stroke using method in integrating DALYs with human capital, but it was difficult to calculate the DALYs.
Long
Yong
Y
Department of Epidemiology , Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an 710032, China.
Liu
Xue-Dong
XD
Duan
Li-Ping
LP
Lu
Juan
J
Yan
Yong-Ping
YP
Zhang
Lei
L
Hu
Ji-Xin
JX
Huang
Jiu-Yi
JY
Xu
De-Zhong
DZ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002681:China; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D020521:Stroke / Q000191:economics* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D055815:Young Adult