Abstract
BACKGROUND: Contact dermatitis is a frequent occupational and non-occupational skin disease.
OBJECTIVES: To investigate the effects of contact dermatitis on labour market affiliation and societal costs in terms of healthcare costs and production loss.
METHODS: A total of 21 441 patients patch tested either in hospital departments or at dermatological clinics in the period 2004-2009 were included in the study. The analyses were stratified by children (age 0-15 years), occupational contact dermatitis (age 16-65 years), and non-occupational dermatitis (age ≥ 16 years). Controls were selected from a 30% random sample of the population. Individual encrypted data were retrieved on healthcare utilization, socio-demographics, education, labour market affiliation and transfer payments from public registers in Denmark for cases and controls.
RESULTS: Attributable healthcare costs for 4 years prior to patch testing (1 year for children) and the year after patch testing were €959 for children, €724 for occupational contact dermatitis, and €1794 for non-occupational dermatitis. Productivity costs for the same period were €10 722 for occupational contact dermatitis and €3074 for non-occupational contact dermatitis.
CONCLUSIONS: The main findings of this study were that there were statistically significant attributable healthcare costs for both children and adults, and statistically significant productivity loss for adults.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Contact Dermatitis |
| Volume | 71 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 154-161 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| ISSN | 0105-1873 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Sept 2014 |
Keywords
- Absenteeism
- Adolescent
- Adult
- Aged
- Case-Control Studies
- Child
- Child, Preschool
- Cost of Illness
- Denmark
- Dermatitis, Allergic Contact
- Dermatitis, Occupational
- Female
- Health Care Costs
- Humans
- Incidence
- Infant
- Infant, Newborn
- Male
- Middle Aged
- Young Adult