Tackling the impact of cancer on health, the economy and society

Guest article by Sabine Vuik, Cormac Everard and Michele Cecchini, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 

An estimated 11 people in the OECD are diagnosed with cancer every minute, with far-reaching consequences for health systems, economies and societies. For these reasons, in 2021, the European Union has launched the ambitious Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. As part of its efforts to support the European Commission, Member States and stakeholders, such as EPHA’s members, in addressing this top public health priority, the OECD has recently published a new report titled Tackling the impact of cancer on health, the economy and society. 

According to our new estimates, cancer will cost a total of EUR PPP 93 billion annually, over the next 21 years, to health systems of EU countries, increasing health expenditure by about 5% relative to a situation where there is no cancer. This is of the same order of magnitude as the total annual health budget of the Netherlands. At the societal level, cancer effectively reduces the labour market by 1.1 million full-time workers through reduced productivity and hours worked, reducing workforce output by EUR PPP 49 billion per year – roughly equivalent to the annual gross domestic product (GDP) of Cyprus. 

Between now and 2050, cancer costs are set to rise for three main reasons. First, the ageing of the population alone will increase per capita cancer health expenditure by 60%, assuming that cancer incidence and survival rates remain unchanged by age group. Second, efforts to improve cancer outcomes are also likely to lead to increased spending on cancer, as people survive longer, require treatment for longer and may develop cancer again. Improving survival to the level of the best performing country will save many lives, but will increase treatment costs by a further 16% over the same period. Finally, higher treatment costs from new drugs and technologies and additional costs associated with the follow-up care of a growing number of cancer survivors, will further increase the total cost. 

These figures clearly show that the current trajectory of health expenditure on cancer is unsustainable, especially at a time when health systems are already under enormous financial pressure, in a challenging economic climate where competing priorities are squeezing the public resources available for health.  It is vital – for health budgets, for the labour market, for all of us who will be directly or indirectly affected by cancer at some point in our lives – that more is done to control the number of new cancer cases that will occur over the coming decades.

Prevention is the best tool we currently have. The new OECD report sets out a series of concrete, actionable steps in prevention, diagnosis and treatment that countries should take to save lives and money. In particular, the report looks at the gains that countries could make by meeting internationally-agreed policy targets on cancer risk factors, such as those set out in the WHO Global Action Plan for Noncommunicable Diseases and the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. For example, for tobacco, the most important risk factor for cancer, countries have agreed to achieve a 30% reduction in tobacco use by 2025 from 2010 levels and less than 5% of the population using tobacco by 2040. Similar targets are set for alcohol consumption, diet, physical activity, overweight and air pollution. The analysis shows that achieving these policy targets could prevent around 8% of all cancer cases, 12% of premature cancer deaths and reduce the burden of cancer on health expenditure by 9% by 2050.  

Achieving these targets will also bring additional benefits beyond health and the economy. For example, there are strong links between our diets and the environment, with around a third of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions linked to our food system. If everyone in the EU followed the dietary targets, eating less meat and more fruit and vegetables, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by an estimated 56 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent per year. This is equivalent to the GHG emissions from more than 13 million petrol cars or about the number of cars in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary combined. 

The OECD report includes country-specific analyses that can help policymakers and other stakeholders develop better-informed policies and strategies for cancer, taking into account not only the physical health effects but also the economic impact. The time for action is now: we need to accelerate prevention efforts, expand screening programmes and prioritise early diagnosis to tackle the growing cancer crisis. This new report sets out the most effective ways to do this.