Economics of Chronic Disease
Three-quarters of US adults have at least one chronic disease, implying that hundreds of millions of Americans live with persistent medical conditions that require ongoing management, limit their daily activities, and reduce their life expectancies. These chronic diseases – including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, to name just a few – represent a serious burden on US society, imposing significant financial, social, and administrative costs on patients, families, communities, providers, and government budgets. Chronic diseases are a major source of mortality among Medicare beneficiaries and a major source of healthcare expenditure among public and private insurers alike. Preventing, treating, and managing these conditions will be critical in the years to come.
These chronic conditions are not merely clinical problems. Spending on health care for chronic diseases costs more than $1 trillion annually, and the concomitant costs of decreased quality of life, reduced labor supply, and diminished social connections are also large.
To understand the economic factors that affect chronic conditions, and the economic effects of these conditions, the NBER Center for Aging and Health Research is planning a virtual meeting on the economics of chronic disease. The conference, which is supported by the National Institute of Aging, will be organized by NBER researchers Kitt Carpenter (Vanderbilt University) and Maria Polyakova (Stanford University School of Medicine). It will be held virtually on April 24, 2026.
The organizers welcome submissions on any subject related to the economics of chronic disease, from researchers who are not NBER affiliates, and from those who are early in their careers. They hope to include perspectives from economics as well as other disciplines such as medicine, public health, and sociology. Topics of particular interest include:
- Lessons from behavioral economics and psychology for preventing and managing disease
- Understanding socio-economic correlates and causes of chronic disease, including education, information, peer effects, and economic shocks
- Impact of health insurance, healthcare access, and healthcare utilization on the prevalence and severity of chronic disease
- Role of environmental exposures
- Patients’ and caregivers’ labor force participation and downstream effects on financial well-being and retirement security
- Financial pressure of chronic disease on insurers, social safety nets, and public budgets
- Macroeconomic or aggregate productivity effects of chronic disease
- The unique burdens faced by patients with multimorbidity
- The role of public and private policies in chronic disease detection and management
- Relationships among chronic conditions, including domino effects (in which one disease increases the risk of others) and shared risk factors
- Approaches to stimulating innovation in disease prevention, detection, and treatment
To be considered for presentation, papers or extended abstracts must be submitted via the following link by 11:59pm ET on Tuesday, March 10, 2026:
Authors chosen to present papers will be notified in late March.
Please share this call with others who may be interested in submitting a paper. Please direct questions about the meeting to Sarah Holmes Berk at sholmes@nber.org.