The total cost of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the EU reached an estimated €282bn in 2021, according to new research presented at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress 2023.
Cardiovascular healthcare accounted for €130bn (46%) of the expenditure, while productivity losses associated with absenteeism and retirement due to illness and disability (5%) and premature death (12%) were estimated at €15bn and €32bn, respectively.
This is the first study to use Europe-wide patient registries and surveys rather than relying on assumptions and, for the first time, includes the costs of long-term social care, which accounted for €25bn (9%) of the total.
A wide variation between countries was identified in the proportion of healthcare budgets spent on CVD, ranging from 6% in Denmark to 19% in Hungary.
The total cost of CVD equated to €630 per EU citizen, varying from €381 in Cyprus to €903 in Germany.
A collaboration between the ESC and the UK’s University of Oxford, this was the most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the economic costs of CVD to EU society since 2006.
Study author Dr Ramon Luengo-Fernandez, associate professor at the University of Oxford, said: ‘CVD had a significant impact on the EU27 economy, costing a total of €282bn in 2021. That’s equivalent to 2% of Europe’s GDP and is significantly more than the entire EU budget itself [€186.6bn in 2023], used to fund research, agriculture, infrastructure and energy across the Union.’
Mounting economic and personal costs
In the study, healthcare included primary care, emergency care, hospital care, outpatient care and medications, while social care included long-term institutionalised care, and care at home.
The main contributor to the expenditure was hospital care at €79bn, representing 51% of CVD-related care costs, and CVD medications accounted for €31 billion (20%). Residential nursing care home costs totalled €15bn (9%).
Informal care, which includes the work or leisure time, valued in monetary terms, that relatives and friends gave up to provide unpaid care accounted for €79bn (28%) of the costs. The research found 7.5 billion hours of unpaid care were provided by relatives and friends for patients with CVD.
What’s more, million working-days were lost in the EU in 2021 because of CVD illness and disability, while 1.7 million people died due to CVD across the EU, representing 1.3 million working-years lost.
Urgent investment in CVD needed
ESC board member and study author Professor Victor Aboyans, head of cardiology at University Hospital Limoges in France, said: ‘This study underscores the urgent need to act collectively on the European scale to better combat the cardiovascular risk of European citizens, in particular through regulations for better cardiovascular prevention and investment in research.
‘By choosing not to invest in cardiovascular disease we are simply deferring the cost. These data force us to ask the question: do we invest in cardiovascular health today or be forced to pay more at a later stage?’
Professor Panos Vardas, chief strategy officer of the European Heart Agency, added: ‘It is evident that there is significant fragmentation among EU countries in terms of cardiovascular disease healthcare expenditures. This necessitates a re-evaluation by the EU as a whole, and the 27 EU countries individually, to better address the outstanding needs and invest more effectively in supporting those suffering from cardiovascular disease.’
