Economic Impacts of Health Research Estimated

Public and private sources in the United States invest approximately $45 billion each year into medical research, but attempts to measure the return on that investment have been few. Exceptional Returns: The Economic Value of America’s Investment in Medical Research presents a preview of the findings of nine economists from the University of Chicago, Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University and Columbia University. The paper’s release is timed to be of value for the 2001 budget debates in Congress.

In summary, the economists found:

• “Increases in life expectancy in just the decades of the 1970s and the 1980s were worth $57 trillion to Americans – a figure six times larger than the entire output of tangible goods and services last year. The gains associated with the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease alone totaled $31 trillion.
• Improvements in health account for almost one-half of the actual gain in American living standards in the past 50 years.
• Medical research that reduced deaths from cancer by just one-fifth would be worth $10 trillion to Americans – double the current national debt.”

Prepared with financial support from the Funding First initiative of the Albert & Mary Lasker Foundation, the report is based on a book to be released later this year.

The 16-page report and additional reports commissioned by Funding First can be downloaded from: http://www.laskerfoundation.org/fundingfirst/reports.html