IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0196990.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The hidden costs: Identification of indirect costs associated with acute gastrointestinal illness in an Inuit community

Author

Listed:
  • Nia King
  • Rachael Vriezen
  • Victoria L Edge
  • James Ford
  • Michele Wood
  • IHACC Research Team
  • Rigolet Inuit Community Government
  • Sherilee Harper

Abstract

Background: Acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI) incidence and per-capita healthcare expenditures are higher in some Inuit communities as compared to elsewhere in Canada. Consequently, there is a demand for strategies that will reduce the individual-level costs of AGI; this will require a comprehensive understanding of the economic costs of AGI. However, given Inuit communities’ unique cultural, economic, and geographic contexts, there is a knowledge gap regarding the context-specific indirect costs of AGI borne by Inuit community members. This study aimed to identify the major indirect costs of AGI, and explore factors associated with these indirect costs, in the Inuit community of Rigolet, Canada, in order to develop a case-based context-specific study framework that can be used to evaluate these costs. Methods: A mixed methods study design and community-based methods were used. Qualitative in-depth, group, and case interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify and describe indirect costs of AGI specific to Rigolet. Data from two quantitative cross-sectional retrospective surveys were analyzed using univariable regression models to examine potential associations between predictor variables and the indirect costs. Results/Significance: The most notable indirect costs of AGI that should be incorporated into cost-of-illness evaluations were the tangible costs related to missing paid employment and subsistence activities, as well as the intangible costs associated with missing community and cultural events. Seasonal cost variations should also be considered. This study was intended to inform cost-of-illness studies conducted in Rigolet and other similar research settings. These results contribute to a better understanding of the economic impacts of AGI on Rigolet residents, which could be used to help identify priority areas and resource allocation for public health policies and programs.

Suggested Citation

  • Nia King & Rachael Vriezen & Victoria L Edge & James Ford & Michele Wood & IHACC Research Team & Rigolet Inuit Community Government & Sherilee Harper, 2018. "The hidden costs: Identification of indirect costs associated with acute gastrointestinal illness in an Inuit community," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-21, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0196990
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0196990
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196990
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196990&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0196990?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marie‐Josée J. Mangen & Michael B. Batz & Annemarie Käsbohrer & Tine Hald & J. Glenn Morris & Michael Taylor & Arie H. Havelaar, 2010. "Integrated Approaches for the Public Health Prioritization of Foodborne and Zoonotic Pathogens," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(5), pages 782-797, May.
    2. Cunsolo Willox, Ashlee & Harper, Sherilee L. & Ford, James D. & Landman, Karen & Houle, Karen & Edge, Victoria L., 2012. "“From this place and of this place:” Climate change, sense of place, and health in Nunatsiavut, Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 538-547.
    3. Chong Ju Choi & Carla C. J. M. Millar & Caroline Y. L. Wong, 2005. "Knowledge and the State," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Knowledge Entanglements, chapter 0, pages 19-38, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Stein, Alexander J., 2013. "Rethinking the measurement of undernutrition in a broader health context: Should we look at possible causes or actual effects:," IFPRI discussion papers 1298, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Ashlee Cunsolo Willox & Sherilee Harper & James Ford & Victoria Edge & Karen Landman & Karen Houle & Sarah Blake & Charlotte Wolfrey, 2013. "Climate change and mental health: an exploratory case study from Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 255-270, November.
    6. Zhang, Wei & Bansback, Nick & Anis, Aslam H., 2011. "Measuring and valuing productivity loss due to poor health: A critical review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 185-192, January.
    7. Harper, Sherilee L. & Edge, Victoria L. & Ford, James & Thomas, M. Kate & McEwen, Scott A., 2015. "Lived experience of acute gastrointestinal illness in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut: “Just suffer through it”," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 86-98.
    8. Sauerborn, R. & Nougtara, A. & Hien, M. & Diesfeld, H. J., 1996. "Seasonal variations of household costs of illness in Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 281-290, August.
    9. Petrasek MacDonald, Joanna & Cunsolo Willox, Ashlee & Ford, James D. & Shiwak, Inez & Wood, Michele, 2015. "Protective factors for mental health and well-being in a changing climate: Perspectives from Inuit youth in Nunatsiavut, Labrador," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 133-141.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Durkalec, Agata & Furgal, Chris & Skinner, Mark W. & Sheldon, Tom, 2015. "Climate change influences on environment as a determinant of Indigenous health: Relationships to place, sea ice, and health in an Inuit community," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 136, pages 17-26.
    2. Alexandra Sawatzky & Ashlee Cunsolo & Andria Jones-Bitton & Dan Gillis & Michele Wood & Charlie Flowers & Inez Shiwak & Sherilee L. Harper, 2020. "“The best scientists are the people that’s out there”: Inuit-led integrated environment and health monitoring to respond to climate change in the Circumpolar North," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 45-66, May.
    3. Nelson, Sarah E. & Wilson, Kathi, 2017. "The mental health of Indigenous peoples in Canada: A critical review of research," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 93-112.
    4. Oliver Hinz & Jochen Eckert, 2010. "The Impact of Search and Recommendation Systems on Sales in Electronic Commerce," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 2(2), pages 67-77, April.
    5. Xiao-Bai Li & Jialun Qin, 2017. "Anonymizing and Sharing Medical Text Records," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 28(2), pages 332-352, June.
    6. Marko Korhonen & Suvi Kangasrääsiö & Rauli Svento, 2017. "Climate change and mortality: Evidence from 23 developed countries between 1960 and 2010," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 5107635, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    7. Lawrence Bunnell & Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson & Victoria Y. Yoon, 0. "RecSys Issues Ontology: A Knowledge Classification of Issues for Recommender Systems Researchers," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-42.
    8. Martinovici, A., 2019. "Revealing attention - how eye movements predict brand choice and moment of choice," Other publications TiSEM 7dca38a5-9f78-4aee-bd81-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Joanna Sokolowska & Patrycja Sleboda, 2015. "The Inverse Relation Between Risks and Benefits: The Role of Affect and Expertise," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(7), pages 1252-1267, July.
    10. Donald R. Haurin & Stuart S. Rosenthal, 2009. "Language, Agglomeration and Hispanic Homeownership," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 155-183, June.
    11. Jong Won Min, 2019. "The Influence of Stigma and Views on Mental Health Treatment Effectiveness on Service Use by Age and Ethnicity: Evidence From the CDC BRFSS 2007, 2009, and 2012," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(3), pages 21582440198, September.
    12. Zhan (Michael) Shi & T. S. Raghu, 2020. "An Economic Analysis of Product Recommendation in the Presence of Quality and Taste-Match Heterogeneity," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 31(2), pages 399-411, June.
    13. Synek, Stefan & Koenigstorfer, Joerg, 2018. "Exploring adoption determinants of tax-subsidized company-leasing bicycles from the perspective of German employers and employees," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 238-260.
    14. Voxi Amvilah & Simplice Anutechia Asongu & Antonio Andrés, 2014. "Globalization, Peace & Stability, Governance, and Knowledge Economy," AAYE Policy Research Working Paper Series 14_024, Association of African Young Economists, revised Dec 2014.
    15. Alwang, Jeffrey & Larochelle, Catherine & Barrera, Victor, 2017. "Farm Decision Making and Gender: Results from a Randomized Experiment in Ecuador," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 117-129.
    16. Yanina Welp & Ferran Urgell & Eduard Aibar, 2007. "From Bureaucratic Administration to Network Administration? An Empirical Study on E-Government Focus on Catalonia," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 299-316, December.
    17. Holly Vins & Jesse Bell & Shubhayu Saha & Jeremy J. Hess, 2015. "The Mental Health Outcomes of Drought: A Systematic Review and Causal Process Diagram," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-25, October.
    18. Brent Hammer & Helen Vallianatos & Candace Nykiforuk & Laura Nieuwendyk, 2015. "Perceptions of healthy eating in four Alberta communities: a photovoice project," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 32(4), pages 649-662, December.
    19. Huijuan Cao & Hidemichi Fujii & Shunsuke Managi, 2015. "A productivity analysis considering environmental pollution and diseases in China," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Amine Dadoun & Michael Defoin-Platel & Thomas Fiig & Corinne Landra & Raphaël Troncy, 2021. "How recommender systems can transform airline offer construction and retailing," Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(3), pages 301-315, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0196990. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.