Estimation of Productivity Lost Due to Breast Cancer Mortality in Iranian Women between 2000 and 2019

Cancer is the third leading cause of death in Iran. Breast cancer, meanwhile, ranks first among diagnosed cancers in women. Therefore, the aim of this study was to estimate the lost productivity due to premature death due to breast cancer in Iranian women.

This is a descriptive-analytical study and was performed retrospectively. The number of years lost due to premature death (YLL) was included as lost productivity. To convert YLLs into monetary units, first GDP per capita and monetary wages for the years 1379-1399 for each year were extracted and then multiplied by the number of YLLs related to the same year. Lost productivity was predicted using the linear regression function of Excel software until 1414.

The number of women who died in the 20 years under study was 43,439, with an average of 2172 deaths (607% deviation) per year. The YLL rate for 20 years was 1,741,195 years with an average of 87,060 years (standard deviation ± 23736). Total lost productivity was $ 10,728,112,578 per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and $ 5,086,663,881 under the labor law method.

The incidence and prevalence of breast cancer in Iran is increasing and health programs implemented by the Ministry of Health have not been able to stop or reduce the growth rate of mortality due to this disease. Lack of productivity lost due to premature death in decision-making has led to inadequate policy-making in this area.