Serious health conditions can disrupt not only the short-term work and productivity of patients and caregivers but also their long-term education, employment, and financial stability. While traditional economic analyses often focus on near-term productivity losses, much less is known about the lasting ripple effects of chronic conditions, acute health events, and caregiving responsibilities.
This workshop, part six in the Center’s Patient-Centered Economic Impacts Project, explored how comparative effectiveness and health economics research can better capture these long-term impacts. By elevating lived experience and examining both losses and gains over a lifetime, this discussion surfaced actionable research questions and methods to reflect the full value of health interventions.
The objectives were:
- Center lived experiences on how illness and caregiving affect long-term education and work.
- Translate existing evidence into new, patient-centered research priorities.
- Identify ways to connect treatment access with sustained economic and educational benefits.
Key questions asked include:
- How do chronic or serious health conditions disrupt educational attainment and career advancement?
- What lifetime earnings or learning opportunities are affected by illness or caregiving responsibilities?
- How can researchers measure and integrate long-term employment and educational outcomes into value assessment and policy?
