Economic impact on health-care costs related to major diseases including HIV/AIDS due to alcohol drinking among Thai populations.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to estimate health-care costs because of diseases caused by alcohol consumption based on health system's perspective.


METHODS
Total direct health-care costs of alcohol drinking were the summation of the costs of alcohol drinking in inpatient and outpatient departments due to chronic diseases and acute conditions using prevalence-based approach. The alcohol-attributable fractions, defined as the proportion of a disease or acute condition in a population attributable to alcohol drinking, were calculated to obtain the number of patients in each disease or acute condition attributable to alcohol drinking. Health-care costs of alcohol drinking were estimated by multiplying the number of patients in each disease category attributable to alcohol drinking with the unit cost of treatment.


RESULTS
Total health-care costs attributed to alcohol in this research were 5491 million baht (i.e., outpatient department [2488 million baht] and inpatient department [3003 million baht]). Cost derived from inpatient department accounted for 55% of the total health-care cost attributed to alcohol.


CONCLUSIONS
The result of this study suggested that alcohol drinking was significantly associated with a large number of health-care costs in Thailand. Estimation of health-care costs related to alcohol drinking would provide an important insight into future policy appraisal and evaluation.
Neramitpitagkul
Prapag
P
Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
Lertpitakpong
Chanida
C
Yothasamut
Jomkwan
J
Thavorncharoensap
Montarat
M
Chaikledkaew
Usa
U
Teerawattananon
Yot
Y
D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000191:economics; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000191:economics*; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000191:economics*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000191:economics; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000191:economics*; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013785:Thailand