National costs of impaired resilience to families, organizations, and communities.

Every major illness identified in community health needs assessments and action plans involves an impairment of resilience. The costs to the U.S. annually are easily in the hundreds of $ billions

• We have not been able to find a reliable assessment of the total costs to the U.S. of an impairment of resilience, much less how a breakdown at any level or in any specific health domain is transferred and multiplies in others. Some modeling on the economics of resilience has been done around managing the uncertainties of disaster relief in order to guide best intervention strategies. But the record is silent on the costs to communities of a breakdown of resilience as it relates to population health, wellbeing, and vitality. We can have a glimpse of a national accounting based on estimates from studies for specific diseases or conditions. For example:
  • Stress is estimated to cost employers in the U.S. annually $300 billion, in health care including burnout, high turnover, lower productivity, litigation resulting from errors and omissions, and so forth. The cost of an impaired resilience which contributes to an organizational inability to manage stress effectively might be attributed a reasonable percentage of these costs.
• As noted above, every major illness identified in community health needs assessments and action involves an impairment of resilience. Every one of these illnesses entails huge annual costs to communities, including hospitalizations, medical interventions, caregiving, and social costs in crime, and lost productivity. For example:
  • Health Literacy — $238 billion)
  • Alzheimer’s — In 2018, the direct costs to American society are estimated at $277 billion, including $186 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments.
  • Parkinson’s — The annual cost of managing Parkinson’s is $10.78 billion, with direct medical costs accounting for 58% ($6.22 billion) of this total.
  • Obesity — $210 billion
  • Drug, and Substance Abuse — $740 billion

Notes:

• Models for the Economics of Resilience 
• Here’s why workplace stress is costing employers $300 billion a year 

Notes:

• Health Literacy
  • Low Health Literacy: Implications for National Health Policy
  • Costs of Alzheimer’s to Medicare and Medicaid

• Costs of Alzheimer’s to Medicare and Medicaid
• Cost of Diabetes
• Hypertension
• Drug and Substance Abuse
• Autism
• Burnout

Next: Cost Savings in Building Resilience