The Economic Costs of Childhood Disability: A Literature Review

Abstract

Background: This literature review investigates the economic costs of childhood disability analysing methodologies used and summarizing the burden worldwide comparing developed and developing countries.

Methods: Four electronic databases were searched. Studies were categorised according to country, perspective, methods of costing, disability category, and time horizon. Annual costs were converted to 2019 current US dollars then compared to the country's per capita current health expenditure (CHE) and gross domestic product (GDP).

Results: Of 2468 references identified, 20 were included in the review. Annual burden of childhood disability ranged ≈$450-69,500 worldwide. Childhood disability imposes a heavy economic burden on families, health systems, and societies. The reason for the wide range of costs is the variability in perspective, costs included, methods, and disability type.

Conclusion: The annual societal costs for one disabled child could be up to the country's GDP per capita. The burden is heavier on households in developing countries as most of the costs are paid out-of-pocket leading to impoverishment of the whole family. Efforts should be directed to avoid preventable childhood disabilities and to support disabled children and their households to make them more independent and increase their productivity. More studies from developing countries are needed.

Keywords: burden; child; cost; disability.

Figure 1

Literature selection process.

Figure 2

Geographical distribution of the review studies This is a royalty free image, ©Copyright J. Bruce Jones 2019 www.mapsfordesign (accessed on 26 August 2019).

Figure 3

Annual childhood disability costs compared with CHE per capita. Care must be taken not to simply compare the costs from different studies as there are considerable methodological differences between them, this graph is just a way of summarizing these differences.

Figure 4

Annual childhood disability costs compared with GDP per capita. Care must be taken not to simply compare the costs from different studies as there are considerable methodological differences between them, this graph is just a way of summarizing these differences.