Autism Costs $35 Billion Per Year to U.S.

May 2006

      Reviewed by: Dr. Priya Saxena
http://www.rxpgnews.com/medicalnews/healthcare/usa/article_4171.shtml

             Ganz broke down the total costs of autism into
      two components: direct and indirect costs. Direct costs
      include direct medical costs, such as physician and
      outpatient services, prescription medication, and
      behavioral therapies (estimated to cost, on average, more
      than $29,000 per person per year) and direct non-medical
      costs, such as special education, camps, and child care
     (estimated to annually cost more than $38,000 for those
      with lower levels of disability and more than $43,000 for
      those with higher levels).
     
       By Harvard School of Public Health, It can cost about $3.2 million
to take care of an autistic person over his or her lifetime. Caring for all
people with autism over their lifetimes costs an estimated $35 billion per
year. Those figures are part of the findings in the first study to
comprehensively survey and document the costs of autism to U.S. society.
Michael Ganz, Assistant Professor of Society, Human Development, and Health
at Harvard School of Public Health, authored the study, which appears in a
chapter titled, "The Costs of Autism," in the newly published book,
Understanding Autism: From Basic Neuroscience to Treatment (CRC Press,
2006). Ganz hopes his research will help policymakers allocate scarce
resources to its treatment and prevention as well as provide a useful
reference for policymakers and advocates to help them more fully understand
the financial impact of autism on U.S. society.
      Ganz's analysis of the costs includes direct and indirect medical
costs associated with the disorder. But he believes the $35 billion annual
societal cost for caring for and treating people with autism likely
underestimates the true costs because there are a number of other services
that are used to support individuals with autism, such as alternative
therapies and other family out-of-pocket expenses, that are difficult to
measure. In addition, Ganz believes that the level of cost could be higher
if there were more useful and widespread treatment options available.
"Given that the federal autism research budget has been historically less
than $100 million per year and given that research budgets for other
conditions with similar numbers of affected individuals are sometimes
orders of magnitude higher, I hope that my research can help focus more
attention on directing more resources toward finding prevention and
treatment options for autism," Ganz said. (For comparison purposes, he
notes estimated annual costs of other conditions, including Alzheimer's
disease ($91 billion); mental retardation ($51 billion); anxiety ($47
billion); and schizophrenia ($33 billion).)
      Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) that involves
severe deficits in a person's ability to communicate and interact with
others. Children with autism often have trouble using their imagination,
have a limited range of interests, and may show repetitive patterns of
behavior or body movements. The disorder is often associated with some
degree of mental retardation. Autism is the most prevalent PDD and the most
common of all serious childhood disorders. It affects an estimated 1.5
million Americans and is increasing at a rate of 10-17 percent each year.
It is four times more common in boys than in girls. The exact cause of
autism is not known and there is currently no cure for the disorder.
      Ganz broke down the total costs of autism into two components: direct
and indirect costs. Direct costs include direct medical costs, such as
physician and outpatient services, prescription medication, and behavioral
therapies (estimated to cost, on average, more than $29,000 per person per
year) and direct non-medical costs, such as special education, camps, and
child care (estimated to annually cost more than $38,000 for those with
lower levels of disability and more than $43,000 for those with higher
levels).
      Indirect costs equal the value of lost productivity resulting from a
person having autism, for example, the difference in potential income
between someone with autism and someone without. It also captures the value
of lost productivity for an autistic person's parents. Examples include
loss of income due to reduced work hours or not working altogether. Ganz
estimates that annual indirect costs for autistic individuals and their
parents range from more than $39,000 to nearly $130,000.
      Since people with autism receive services from a wide variety of
sources, Ganz believes future research efforts should focus on identifying
those sources and linking those costs to non-financial data about the
burdens of autism. These complementary sources of data can provide a richer
picture that will be useful to policymakers in the future to assist them in
devoting resources to address the financial and non-financial effects of
autism.
      - Understanding Autism: From Basic Neuroscience to Treatment (CRC
Press, 2006)