India faces second highest economic burden due to diabetes: Study

Key Highlights

• Factoring in informal care amounts to up to USD 152 trillion, or 1.7 per cent of the world’s yearly GDP, the study estimates.
• “Caregivers often drop out of the labour market, at least partially, which creates additional economic costs,” author Klaus Prettner, professor of macroeconomics and digitalisation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, said.
• The high share of informal caregiving, making up almost 90 per cent of the total economic burden, is explained by the fact that prevalence exceeds mortality by a factor of 30-50, the researchers said.
• “The United States faces the largest economic burden of diabetes mellitus at INT$ 2.5 trillion, followed by India at INT$ 1.6 trillion and China at INT$ 1.0 trillion.
• When considering informal care loss, the largest economic burdens are INT$ 16.5 trillion in the United States, INT$ 11.4 trillion in India and INT$ 11.0 trillion in China,” the authors wrote.