Methodological foundations for cost-of-illness studies in Brazil

To propose recommendations on how to conduct cost-of-illness studies in the Brazilian public health system. A literature review was conducted on issues related to the cost-of-illness methodology and its use in the Brazilian case. The results are divided into two blocks. The first refers to the concepts inherent to cost-of-illness studies, such as types of costs, perspective of analysis, presentation of prices, and the sources of information. The second regards recommendations for applying the method of cost of illness to the Brazilian context. Seven steps to prepare a cost study of the disease are proposed: 1) select the disease and word the question to be answered; 2) define the perspective, approach, and types of costs to be analyzed; 3) obtain the risk of incidence of comorbidities that could be partially avoided if the investigated disease did not exist; 4) calculate the risk attributable to the disease under investigation in its comorbidities; 5) obtain costs of each associated pathology; 6) calculate the final cost of illness; and 7) analyze the results. It is feasible to adopt the method of cost of the disease in Brazil, because the information is available and accessible to the public. Despite some limitations, the studies on the cost of the disease are very useful for health planning, since they allow estimation of the overall cost of a given disease in the country.