Costs of Skin Cancer
Skin cancer is conservatively estimated to cost the New Zealand health system more than NZ$57M each year. While the most important cost of skin cancer is early death, there are other significant costs, such as surgical intervention, disfigurement, loss of income, and suffering.
Key findings of a 2009 report:
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Most skin cancer cases occur among older people. But melanoma has a significantly lower average age of incidence than non-melanoma skin cancers, and some melanoma deaths occur in quite young age-groups. Female skin cancer incidence rates are significantly lower than those of males, and female mortality rates are half or less those of males.
- An estimated 4,741 life-years were lost in 2006 due to skin cancer.
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In addition if these people had not died they could have made an economic contribution through employment of an estimated additional NZ$66M in 2006 (in 2007/08 dollars).
You can read a copy of the full report Costs of Skin Cancer to New Zealand Report 2009 or you can read a summary Costs of Skin Cancer Information
