ReviewApplied health economics and health policy2018
Friction Cost Estimates of Productivity Costs in Cost-of-Illness Studies in Comparison with Human Capital Estimates: A Review.
Review in Applied health economics and health policy, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 113 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
113 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Including Productivity as an Element to Reflect Value of the Treatment: A Systematic Review of Published Health Economic Evaluations.PharmacoEconomics - open · 2025Pooled it
- Intersectoral costs of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV: a systematic review of cost-of-illness (COI) studies.BMC health services research · 2021Pooled it
- Systematic review: societal cost of illness of inflammatory bowel disease is increasing due to biologics and varies between continents.Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics · 2021Pooled it
- Cost-effectiveness of Interventions for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: A Systematic Review of Economic Evaluations.Applied health economics and health policy · 2021Pooled it
- Use of Productivity Loss/Gain in Cost-Effectiveness Analyses for Drugs: A Systematic Review.PharmacoEconomics · 2021Pooled it
- Prevention of sickness absence through early identification and rehabilitation of at-risk patients with musculoskeletal disorders (PREVSAM): a cost-effectiveness analysis comparing team-based rehabilitation in primary care vs treatment as usual.BMC health services research · 2026Trial
- Excess costs of mental disorders by level of severity.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2023Trial
- Physiotherapist or physician as primary assessor for patients with suspected knee osteoarthritis in primary care - a cost-effectiveness analysis of a pragmatic trial.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2022Trial
- More cost-effective management of patients with musculoskeletal disorders in primary care after direct triaging to physiotherapists for initial assessment compared to initial general practitioner assessment.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2019Trial
- Estimating the economic burden of ischaemic stroke in China from 2022 to 2030: a population-based modelling study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Generalized Pustular Psoriasis: A Cost-of-Illness and Health-Related Quality of Life Study in Italy.PharmacoEconomics - open · 2026Article
- Article
- Development and Validation of a Markov Microsimulation Model for the Economic Evaluation of Methamphetamine-Associated Heart Failure in the United States.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2026Article
- Economic Losses from Premature Under-Five Mortality due to Diarrhoeal Diseases in South Asia: Trends, Aetiologies, and Key Risk Factors.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2026Article
- Advancing Lost Productivity Measurement in Economic Evaluations: Evidence Priorities from a Targeted Literature Review and Expert Workshop.PharmacoEconomics - open · 2026Review
- Costs of autism spectrum disorders and access to services in Spain.BMC health services research · 2026Observational
- Factors Associated with the Odds, Duration, and Costs of Health-Related Absenteeism: A Population-Based Study in São Paulo City, Brazil.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Introducing an Expanded Value Framework in Health Technology Assessment of Vaccines.Journal of market access & health policy · 2026Article
- Paid and unpaid productivity losses across 28 European countries due to excess deaths and COVID-19 deaths from 2020 to 2023.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2026Article
- Using a return on investment analysis to estimate the economic impact of potential changes to alcohol control policies in Estonia.European journal of public health · 2026Article
53 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Cost-of-illness (COI) studies often include the 'indirect' cost of lost production resulting from disease, disability, and premature death, which is an important component of the economic burden of chronic conditions assessed from the societal perspective. In most COI studies, productivity costs are estimated primarily as the economic value of production forgone associated with loss of paid employment (foregone gross earnings); some studies include the imputed value of lost unpaid work as well. This approach is commonly but imprecisely referred to as the human capital approach (HCA). However, there is a lack of consensus among health economists as to how to quantify loss of economic productivity. Some experts argue that the HCA overstates productivity losses and propose use of the friction cost approach (FCA) that estimates societal productivity loss as the short-term costs incurred by employers in replacing a lost worker. This review sought to identify COI studies published during 1995-2017 that used the FCA, with or without comparison to the HCA, and to compare FCA and HCA estimates from those studies that used both approaches. We identified 80 full COI studies (of which 75% focused on chronic conditions), roughly 5-8% of all COI studies. The majority of those studies came from three countries, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, that have officially endorsed use of the FCA. The FCA results in smaller productivity loss estimates than the HCA, although the differential varied widely across studies. Lack of standardization of HCA and FCA methods makes productivity cost estimates difficult to compare across studies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.