Illnesses do not just impact patients, but also caregivers and family members. Surprisingly, economic analyses often overlook the effects of diseases on caregivers.
A recent review uncovered a lack of consideration for caregiver health-related quality of life in cost-utility analyses. This omission extends to maternal-perinatal and pediatric treatments, where family health impacts are rarely accounted for in analyses.
To tackle this issue, the Spillovers in Health Economic Evaluation and Research (SHEER) task force was established to outline best practices for measuring disease spillovers on caregivers in health economic analysis. The task force defined these spillovers as the impact of an individual’s health status on their family members’ and caregivers’ quality of life.
The SHEER task force provided specific recommendations to address this gap in research.
The paper further elaborates on each recommendation and suggests areas for future research. For more details, access the full paper here.
