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. 2021 Mar;8(1):e000654.
doi: 10.1136/bmjresp-2020-000654.

Economic burden of asthma in Singapore

Eric A Finkelstein  1 , Eden Lau  2 , Brett Doble  2 , Bennett Ong  3 , Mariko Siyue Koh  4   5
Affiliations

Economic burden of asthma in Singapore

Eric A Finkelstein et al. BMJ Open Respir Res. 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Background and objective: Up-to-date economic burden of asthma in Singapore is currently unknown.

Methods: We quantify the per capita and total annual costs of asthma for adults and children by level of symptom control (uncontrolled, partly controlled, and well controlled) via a cross-sectional online survey administered to a national web panel. Participants were asked about healthcare utilisation, days missed from work, and reduced productivity due to their symptoms. These values were then monetised and multiplied by prevalence estimates of adult and child asthmatics to generate total costs.

Results: A total of 300 adults and 221 parents of children with asthma were included in analysis. The total annual cost of adult asthma was estimated to be SGD 1.74 billion (US$1.25 billion) with 42% coming from the uncontrolled group, 45% from the partly controlled group, and 13% from the well-controlled group. For children, the total cost is SGD 0.35 billion (US$0.25 billion), with 64%, 26% and 10% coming from each group respectively. Combined, the annual economic burden of asthma in Singapore is SGD 2.09 billion (US$1.50 billion) with 79% due to productivity losses.

Conclusion: Poorly controlled asthma imposes a significant economic burden. Therefore, better control of disease has the potential to generate not only health improvements, but also medical expenditure savings and productivity gains.

Keywords: asthma; health economist; paediatric asthma.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: EAF: has done paid consulting work for AstraZeneca and other Pharma companies. BO: is an employee of AstraZeneca. However, he had no role in the analysis and AstraZeneca did not have a right of refusal on publication. MSK: has grant support from Astra-Zeneca, and received honoraria for lectures and advisory board meetings paid to her hospital (Singapore General Hospital) from GlaxoSmithKline, Astra-Zeneca, Sanofi, Novartis and Boehringer Ingelheim, outside the submitted work.

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