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Recreational waterborne illnesses cost US more than $2 billion annually
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Recreational waterborne illnesses present a substantial economic burden to the United States health care system, with an annual cost of at least $2.2 billion from 90 million cases, according to findings published in Environmental Health.
“The enjoyment people get from surface water recreation is tempered by the risk of illness from exposure to polluted water,” Stephanie DeFlorio-Barker, PhD, MPH, from the division of environmental and occupational health sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, and colleagues wrote. “Water recreators have a higher incidence of acute gastrointestinal illness and non-enteric illnesses, including respiratory, ear, eye and skin symptoms than non-water recreators.”
“To date, the literature does not describe the number of illnesses attributable to surface water recreation in the U.S. or the costs of such illnesses per year,” the researchers continued. “Without these estimates, costs of improved public health protections, beach monitoring and notification programs or beach remediation efforts cannot be put into context.”
To determine the number of recreational waterborne illnesses experienced within the U.S. and the economic burden they create, DeFlorio-Barker and colleagues conducted an analysis of data from prospective cohort studies concerning water recreation, reports of recreational waterborne disease outbreaks and national water recreation statistics. From these data, information on the cost resulting from medication use, health care provider visits, ED use, hospitalizations, reduced productivity, long-term sequelae and death was collected.
The researchers identified an annual prevalence of 4 billion surface water recreation-related events within the U.S., which resulted in approximately 90 million illnesses. These events and illnesses cost Americans between $2.2 and $3.7 billion per year (central 90% of values).
Of the illnesses assessed within this study, those that required the attention of a health care provider or a visit to an ED created more than 65% of the annual economic burden. Illnesses that required hospitalization or resulted in mortality contributed between $108 and $614 million of the economic burden (8%).
“In our analysis, we did not estimate economic burden according to age category,” DeFlorio-Barker and colleagues wrote. “Since children are more likely to have contact with surface water and are at an increased risk of illness, we would expect that some of the economic burden for water recreation to be among children.” – by Katherine Bortz
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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