LifeLossMOD: A microsimulation model of the economic impacts of premature mortality in Australia

While the direct costs of mortality to the health care system are known to be significant, there is less information regarding the wider economic impacts of mortality including the implications for productivity, household incomes and government revenue. This paper outlines the development of LifeLossMOD,a new microsimulation model to estimate the economic impacts of premature mortality in Australia. The model is based on a census of 2003 mortality records and applies projections from the APPSIM microsimulation model to estimate the counterfactual lifetime trajectories forgone to the year 2030. We estimated that mortality in 2003 accounted for over 280,000 full time working years lost to the Australian economy. Future applications of LifeLossMOD will explore the distributional impacts of mortality on employment, GDP, government revenue and household income, wealth and retirement savings. These estimates will allow decision makers and others to more accurately determine the full economic impacts of mortality by cause. In addition, the model will be able to quantify the financial gains likely to accrue with preventative health care interventions, which can in turn be reported on in cost effectiveness analyses.