Summary of Findings
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The best estimate of total costs of environmentally attributable adult and childhood diseases and disabilities in the state of Oregon is $1.57 billion per year, with a range of $1.25 to $2.00 million. The best estimate of total costs of environmentally attributable disease in the state of Oregon for children alone is $1.10 billion, with a range of $984.4 million to $1.29 billion. The estimates are summarized in Table 1.
Cost estimates per year for specific diseases are:
- Adult + childhood asthma: $30.0 million
- Childhood asthma: $27.7 million
- Adult cardiovascular disease: $342.5 million
- Adult + childhood cancer: $131.0 million
- Childhood cancer: $9.2 million
- Childhood lead poisoning: $878.0 million
- Birth defects: $2.8 million
- Neurobehavioral disorders: $187.1 million
To put these costs in context, the estimated costs for childhood diseases and disabilities is equivalent to 0.83% of the 2005 total Oregon Gross State Product (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2006). The estimated costs for adult and childhood disease combined are equivalent to 1.18% of the Oregon Gross State Product.
Most policy, and in particular environmental health policy, fails to fully consider the environmentally attributable economic costs of diseases and disabilities. By implementing policies that help identify and eliminate exposure to environmentally attributable factors, Oregon can reduce a substantial economic burden on the state, while also safeguarding the public’s health.
Study Limitations
Several limitations are inherent in this report. Perhaps the most important is the lack of data for certain measurements, including the lack of a lead poisoning registry in Oregon to keep track of lead poisoning cases. Other limitations include extrapolating disease incidence in Oregon based on a proportion of Oregon’s population compared to the national population.
To account for some of these limitations, ranges of costs based on ranges of environmentally attributable factors for each disease have been calculated. An additional limitation to consider is that there are many intangible costs that come from the impacts of environmentally attributable disease and disability. These include family and social hardship and lost quality of life. Including these associated costs would result in a significantly larger economic burden from environmentally attributable disease.