IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/usdami/316343.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Updating Economic Burden of Foodborne Diseases Estimates for Inflation and Income Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Hoffmann, Sandra
  • Ahn, Jae-Wan

Abstract

This report updates the USDA, Economic Research Service’s (ERS) 2013 estimates of the economic burden for the 15 leading foodborne pathogens for inflation and income growth to 2018. USDA, ERS estimates of the economic burden of foodborne diseases include the costs of medical care, the value of lost productivity due to illness-induced absences from jobs, and the economic burden of premature deaths from foodborne illness. These estimates reflect the impact on consumers, not producers. Inflation and income growth result in a higher economic burden of foodborne illness, even holding constant disease incidence and health care use. We found that in 2018 dollars, the economic burden of these pathogens was $17.6 billion, an increase of about $2 billion, or 13 percent, over the 2013 USDA, ERS estimate of $15.5 billion for the same 15 pathogens. Overall inflation from 2013 to 2018 was 7.8 percent, and real per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth was 8.8 percent. This means the value of preventing these foodborne illnesses increased by about 5 percentage points more than overall inflation and 4 percentage points more than income over the 5-year period. This paper also explores the role of price inflation and income growth in driving changes in the economic burden of these illnesses.

Suggested Citation

  • Hoffmann, Sandra & Ahn, Jae-Wan, 2021. "Updating Economic Burden of Foodborne Diseases Estimates for Inflation and Income Growth," USDA Miscellaneous 316343, United States Department of Agriculture.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:usdami:316343
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.316343
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/316343/files/Updating%20Economic%20Burden%20of%20Foodborne%20Diseases%20Estimates%20for%20Inflation%20and%20Income%20Growth.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.316343?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. Hoffmann, Sandra & Anekwe, Tobenna D., 2013. "Making Sense of Recent Cost-of-Foodborne-Illness Estimates," Economic Information Bulletin 262123, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Trudy Ann Cameron, 2014. "Valuing Morbidity in Environmental Benefit-Cost Analysis," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 249-272, October.
    3. Buzby, Jean C. & Roberts, Tanya & Lin, Chung-Tung Jordan & MacDonald, James M., 1996. "Bacterial Foodborne Disease: Medical Costs and Productivity Losses," Agricultural Economic Reports 33991, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Maureen Cropper & James K. Hammitt & Lisa A. Robinson, 2011. "Valuing Mortality Risk Reductions: Progress and Challenges," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 313-336, October.
    5. Hoffman, Sandra & Maculloch, Bryan & Batz, Michael, 2015. "Economic Burden of Major Foodborne Illnesses Acquired in the United States," Economic Information Bulletin 205081, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    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. Hoffman, Sandra & Ahn, Jae-Wan, 2021. "Updating Economic Burden of Foodborne Diseases Estimates for Inflation and Income Growth," Economic Research Report 327181, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Hoffman, Sandra & Maculloch, Bryan & Batz, Michael, 2015. "Economic Burden of Major Foodborne Illnesses Acquired in the United States," Economic Information Bulletin 205081, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Herrera-Araujo, Daniel & Rheinberger, Christoph M. & Hammitt, James K., 2022. "Valuing non-marginal changes in mortality and morbidity risk," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    4. John Bovay, 2025. "Shaming, stringency, and shirking: Evidence from food‐safety inspections," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 107(1), pages 152-180, January.
    5. Brown, David P. & Muehlenbachs, Lucija, 2023. "The Value of Electricity Reliability: Evidence from Battery Adoption," Working Papers 2023-5, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 26 Jul 2024.
    6. Adler, Matthew, 2020. "What should we spend to save lives in a pandemic? A critique of the value of statistical life," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105283, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Waldhoff, Stephanie & Anthoff, David & Rose, Steven K. & Tol, Richard S. J., 2014. "The marginal damage costs of different greenhouse gases: An application of FUND," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-33.
    8. Mukhopadhaya, Kaushik & Adhikari, Bishwa B. & Mumma, Gerald A. & Teisl, Mario F., 2004. "Consumers' Willingness To Pay For Food Safety: A Pathogen Specific Analysis," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20064, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Ivanek, Renata & Grohn, Yrjo T. & Tauer, Loren W. & Wiedmann, Martin, 2003. "The Cost and Benefit of Listeria Monocytogenes Food Safety Measures," Working Papers 127249, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    10. Paul E. McNamara & Gay Y. Miller & Xuanli Liu & David A. Barber, 2007. "A farm-to-fork stochastic simulation model of pork-borne salmonellosis in humans: Lessons for risk ranking," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 157-172.
    11. Golan, Elise H. & Ralston, Katherine L. & Frenzen, Paul D., 1998. "A Distributional Analysis Of The Costs Of Foodborne Illness: Who Ultimately Pays?," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-13, July.
    12. Evans, Keith S. & Teisl, Mario F. & Lando, Amy. M. & Liu, Sherry T., 2020. "Risk perceptions and food-handling practices in the home," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    13. Alberini, Anna & Ščasný, Milan, 2018. "The benefits of avoiding cancer (or dying from cancer): Evidence from a four- country study," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 249-262.
    14. Bishop, Kelly C. & Kuminoff, Nicolai V. & Mathes, Sophie M. & Murphy, Alvin D., 2024. "The marginal cost of mortality risk reduction: Evidence from housing markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    15. Makofske, Matthew Philip, 2021. "Spoiled food and spoiled surprises: Inspection anticipation and regulatory compliance," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 348-365.
    16. Ragona, Maddalena & Mazzocchi, Mario, 2008. "Measuring the Impacts of Food Safety Regulations: A Methodological Review," 2008 International Congress, August 26-29, 2008, Ghent, Belgium 43864, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Buzby, Jean C. & Fox, John A. & Ready, Richard C. & Crutchfield, Stephen R., 1998. "Measuring Consumer Benefits Of Food Safety Risk Reductions," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-14, July.
    18. Howley, Peter, 2017. "Less money or better health? Evaluating individual’s willingness to make trade-offs using life satisfaction data," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 53-65.
    19. Marcela V. Parada‐Contzen, 2019. "The Value of a Statistical Life for Risk‐Averse and Risk‐Seeking Individuals," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(11), pages 2369-2390, November.
    20. Robert L. Herrick & Steven G. Buchberger & Robert M. Clark & Margaret Kupferle & Regan Murray & Paul Succop, 2012. "A Markov Model To Estimate Salmonella Morbidity, Mortality, Illness Duration, And Cost," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(10), pages 1169-1182, October.

    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:ags:usdami:316343. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.usda.gov .

    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.