The productivity cost of mortality due to lung cancer, breast cancer and melanoma in Europe across 2010, 2015 and 2019.

Background: Cancer caused an estimated 2.2 million deaths across Europe in 2020. This analysis estimated the cost of lost productivity due to premature deaths associated with lung, breast and melanoma cancer and investigated the temporal trends across European regions across 2010, 2015 and 2019.

Method: The human capital approach was used to estimate the indirect costs from lung, melanoma, and breast cancers (ICD-10 code: C33-34, C43, and C50, respectively) in Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western Europe. Age-specific mortality, and country-specific wages and employment rates were used to calculate years of productive life lost (YPLL), YPLL/death and present value of future lost productivity (PVFLP). Data were sourced from the World Health Organization, Eurostat, and the World Bank.

Results: The number of cancer deaths remained relatively stable from 2010 to 2019. YPLL/death decreased across all European regions and for all cancers between 2010 and 2019 (reported ranges across European regions; lung cancer: 25-42 %; breast cancer: 18-21 %; melanoma: 31-37 %). In Europe, the decrease in PVFLP in 2019 compared to 2010 was €2995M for lung cancer, €295M for melanoma, and €466M for breast cancer, with an overall reduction of productivity cost of €3756M in these cancer types.

Conclusion: The results from this study illustrate a decreased trend in productivity costs from 2010 to 2019 which could be driven by deaths occurring at an older age, suggesting that advances in cancer prevention and the treatment landscape have extended the life of cancer patients, yielding less productivity losses.

Policy summary: The indirect economic costs modelled show the impact of past effective health policies and new treatments. Continued efforts to improve public health policies in supporting public awareness of risk factors and value of early diagnosis could lead to further reduction in these losses. Prevention, early diagnosis, and activation of early treatment pathways could serve to reduce loss of life and improve productivity.