全球智库信息集成服务系统

Large returns result from very small health improvements

• Assuming health improvements of 0.01 percent or less in terms of age incidence, mortality, and quality of life for the U.S. population age 25 and older, more than 53,000 years with CAD can be saved across 30 years, with substantial gains in health-related quality of life.
• Almost 12,000 more years (and $236 million) can be saved in terms of labor productivity, both from higher labor and earnings from having fewer years of CAD and more years alive.

The return on investment is 9,500 percent for doubled investment in women's health research, even with only 0.01 percent improvement in health outcomes

• Investing in women's health research for CAD yields benefits similar to investing in general research, with improved health-related quality of life for women from women-focused research.

Women's health has suffered from insufficient research addressing women. The research community has not widely embraced the value of this research, and the impact of limited knowledge about women's health relative to men's is far-reaching. Without information on the potential return on investment for women's health research, research funders, policymakers, and business leaders lack a basis for altering research investments to improve knowledge of women's health.

As part of an initiative of the Women's Health Access Matters (WHAM) nonprofit foundation, RAND Corporation researchers examined the impact of increasing funding for women's health research on coronary artery disease (CAD). CAD was chosen partly because physiological differences between men and women affect factors that relate to the development and progression of cardiovascular disease. In this report, the authors present the results of microsimulation models used to explore the potential for enhanced investment in women's health research, in terms of the economic well-being of women and for the U.S. population.

• Skip to page content

Objective Analysis. Effective Solutions.