Seventy-six million Americans fall ill each year from eating foods
contaminated with bacteria, viruses, and parasites. If you have
ever been one of them, you are acquainted with some of the costs
these diseases inflict. Discomfort, pain, time lost from normal
activities, forgone earnings, spending on medications, long-term
medical treatment, and even death are all among the possible consequences
of foodborne illness. Possible financial costs can run to millions
of dollars.
ERS researchers have estimated the costs
of illness and premature death for a number of foodborne illnesses.
For example, ERS estimates the annual U.S. economic costs due to
foodborne Salmonella infections at $2.4 billion. Policymakers
use such estimates to help them rank risks, focus policy, and prioritize
spending. The ERS estimates, like all cost-of-illness estimates,
include assumptions about disease incidence, the severity of the
illness, and the costs incurred for medical care, lost productivity,
and so on. Changes to any of these assumptions change the cost estimates
and, as a result, could change risk rankings, spending priorities,
and food safety policies.
To provide policymakers and others with information on the assumptions
behind foodborne illness cost estimates—and to give them a
chance to make their own assumptions and calculate their own cost
estimates—economists at ERS have developed a web-based
"Foodborne Illness Cost Calculator". The Calculator
currently describes the assumptions and calculations behind the
ERS cost estimates for one foodborne pathogen, Salmonella.
(Four more pathogens—E. coli O157, E. coli
non-O157 STEC, Listeria, and Campylobacter—will
be added later.) The Calculator also describes alternative epidemiological
and cost assumptions, including those used by the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration when they
calculate illness costs for policy analyses.
The Calculator allows users to create their own cost estimates
by changing the ERS assumptions and to examine the impact that different
assumptions have on cost estimates and risk rankings. Calculator
users can change assumptions to reflect any specific information
they may have about disease incidence, medical costs, productivity
losses, or other costs. By changing the assumption about the number
of cases, users can calculate the costs of foodborne illness for
a particular State or region, or for a particular foodborne illness
outbreak. A user could even calculate his or her own potential costs
from a bout of foodborne illness.
