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A Systematic Review to Assess the Policy-Making Relevance of Dementia Cost-of-Illness Studies in the US and Canada

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  • Cost-of-Illness Studies and Dementia Policy Making
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Abstract

A systematic review of dementia cost-of-illness (COI) studies in the US and Canada was conducted to explore the policy-making relevance of these studies.

MEDLINE, CINAHL, EconLit, AMED and the Cochrane Library were searched from inception to March 2010 for English-language COI articles. Content analysis was used to extract common themes about dementia cost from the conclusions of articles that passed title, abstract and full-text screening. These themes informed our exploration of the policy-making relevance of COI studies in dementia.

The literature search retrieved 961 articles and data were extracted from 46 articles. All except three articles reported data from the US; 27 articles included Alzheimer’s dementia only. Common themes pertained to general observations about dementia cost, cost drivers in dementia, caregiver cost, items that may lower dementia cost, social service cost, Medicare and Medicaid cost, and cost comparisons with other diseases.

The common themes suggest policy-oriented research for the future. However, the extracted COI studies were typically not conducted for policymaking purposes and they did not commonly provide prescriptive policy options. Researchers and policy makers need to consider whether the optimal research focus in dementia should be on programme evaluations instead of more COI studies.

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Acknowledgements

Mark Oremus holds a Career Scientist Award from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. He is also the McLaughlin Professor of Population and Public Health at McMaster University. S. Carolina Aguilar is a doctoral candidate in the Health Research Methodology Program at McMaster University. Her doctoral studies are supported by a research scholarship award from the Canadian Researchers at the End of Life Network (CARENET).

The authors confirm that the paper is an accurate representation of the results. The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University DTC, 50 Main Street East - 3rd Floor, Hamilton, Ontario, L8N 1E9, Canada

    Mark Oremus & S. Carolina Aguilar

  2. McMaster Evidence-based Practice Centre, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Mark Oremus

  3. Canadian Researchers at the End of Life Network (CARENET), Kingston, Ontario, Canada

    S. Carolina Aguilar

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  1. Mark Oremus
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Correspondence to Mark Oremus.

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Oremus, M., Aguilar, S.C. A Systematic Review to Assess the Policy-Making Relevance of Dementia Cost-of-Illness Studies in the US and Canada. Pharmacoeconomics 29, 141–156 (2011). https://doi.org/10.2165/11539450-000000000-00000

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