title: Economic impact on health-care costs related to major diseases including HIV/AIDS due to alcohol drinking among Thai populations.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand.
authors.forename: Prapag
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Neramitpitagkul
authors.forename: Chanida
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lertpitakpong
authors.forename: Jomkwan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yothasamut
authors.forename: Montarat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Thavorncharoensap
authors.forename: Usa
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Chaikledkaew
authors.forename: Yot
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Teerawattananon
mesh_terms: 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