How to Use the Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator
Choose a pathogen from the Calculator home
page, to get to the main pathogen page. The table on the pathogen
page is the heart of the Calculator. Use this table as your central
navigation point to make changes to the assumptions and calculate
new cost estimates. All of your assumption changes are cumulative
and will rebuild this table with estimates reflecting all your changes.
On the main pathogen page, you can:
- Review the ERS estimates by cost component and by medical case
outcome (severity level).
- Examine the assumptions and calculations behind the ERS estimates:
Per case assumptions and more assumption details and citations are available for each pathogen.
- View the estimates in a pie chart showing the distribution by
cost component, or in an outcome tree depicting the distribution
of cases by medical severity level:
Select the Pie chart or Tree diagram option at the top right corner of the Calculator.
- Make changes to any of the ERS assumptions and calculate your
own estimates:
How to Generate New Cost Estimates
You can change one or many assumptions to create new cost estimates.
The Calculator will remember any changes you make. This means your
new cost estimates could reflect many different assumption changes.
A checked box will appear on your estimates table to help you remember
which assumptions you changed.
(1) Provide your own case numbers/distributions:
From the pathogen cost estimates table, you can choose to make changes
to the assumptions about case numbers and/or
outcome distribution to generate new cost estimates.
On the pathogen case numbers page,
you can:
- Review the ERS case number and case outcome distribution assumptions.
- Change the total number of cases per year. Choose
among the ERS or the alternative assumptions, or enter your own
in the space provided.
- Change the outcome distribution (whether
or not you decide to change the case numbers). Select the ERS
assumption or choose to provide your own distribution in the space
provided.
- Choose "Calculate" to create
new cost estimates using your assumptions.
(2) Enter your own medical and other costs:
From the pathogen cost estimates table, you can choose to make changes
to medical and other cost assumptions and generate new cost estimates.
The Calculator groups Salmonella cases into four severity
levels (from least to most severe cases) and calculates costs for each level. Change assumptions
for one or all of the cost components for one or all of the severity
levels. To make changes to the cost assumptions for one of the severity
levels, choose the "make changes" drop-down menu at the
bottom right of the pathogen cost estimates table, and select a
medical case outcome (severity level) to change a cost component.
Once on the pathogen severity-level page, you can make changes
to the assumptions about medical utilization and costs, productivity
losses, disutility costs, and/or costs of premature death. Just
go to the assumption you would like to change and choose among the
alternative assumptions provided or enter your own assumption in
the right column of the table. Note that any item left unchanged
will use the ERS assumption as the default.
You can change one or all of the assumptions about:
- Average medication costs per case.
- Average number per case of physician office visits, emergency
room visits, outpatient clinic visits, and hospitalization (Severity
2, 3, and 4).
- Average cost per case for a physician office visit, emergency
room visit, outpatient clinic visit, and hospitalization (Severity
2, 3, and 4).
- Average number of days lost from regular activity due to the
illness (Severity 1, 2, and 3).
- The population included in the productivity estimates. Choose
to include only employed cases or all cases (Severity 1, 2, and
3).
- Disutility costs for salmonellosis. ERS includes no costs for
disutility, but you could choose to include values for pain and
suffering, inconvenience, and time lost from regular activities
(Severity 1, 2, and 3).
- Costs of premature death (Severity 4 only). Choose among alternative
assumptions or enter your own value.
To generate a new cost estimate for this
severity level using your assumptions, click the "Calculate"
button at the bottom right of the table.
Other Tips
How to analyze your cost estimates
On the Your Cost Estimates page, select "look behind the
estimates " on the bottom left of the table, and then "Per case
assumptions" to see the choices you made in preparing your estimates
(such as case numbers, average number of visits per case, etc.). Use the
"graph it" menu at the bottom center of the table to toggle
between the table and a tree diagram or pie chart of your estimates. You
might want to print the ERS estimates and print a view of your estimates
to compare them side by side.
Compare ERS estimates with your estimates
ERS estimates are shown directly below your estimates
Start over
Press "Reset" on the
Your Cost Estimates page to delete all your assumptions and restore the
ERS default values.
Note
Your changes are not saved when you end the session and exit the
Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator.
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