Australia: Zurich analysis finds mental health cases most prevalent in recent years
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Jul 2024
Mental health conditions – including affective disorders, anxiety and substance abuse – were the most prevalent in Australia in recent years, with over 12m active cases between 2020 and 2022. This is followed by COVID-19, which has seen approximately 11m reported cases over a similar period, according to an analysis by Zurich Financial Services Australia (Zurich).
In a report, ‘Cost of Care’, Zurich analyses and collates publicly available health and economic data for more than 30 major medical conditions – including: mental health; cancer; respiratory and heart disease – comparing prevalence, incidence and survival rates and calculating lifetime and out of pocket cost estimates for many conditions.
For cancer, the report finds increasing incidence estimates in eight out of 10 types since 2018, driven by: prostate (+44% since 2018); breast (+14%) and melanoma (+27%). Despite this, most cancer types saw marginally improved survival rates.
Lifetime cost estimates vary by condition, led by spinal cord injury (between A$6.8m ($4.5m) and A$12.9m), childhood cancer (A$1.09m) and motor neurone disease (A$201,340). Other highly prevalent health conditions recorded costs including A$143,000 for diabetes Type 1 (lifetime cost) and A$41,748 for chronic kidney disease with kidney failure (average cost per year). A