The authors published in the medical journal The Lancet study concluded that only in OECD countries in the period from 2008 to 2010, more than 260 thousand cancer patients died because of the economic crisis. They could not obtain needed medical care due to the fact that I lost my job, and also due to the fact that a number of governments took the decision to cut social spending.
The number of cancer patients worldwide, which in the crisis has faced the same difficulties and eventually died, according to the calculations of the author of the report, can exceed 500 thousand people. In the EU the number of cancer patients who would not have died, if not for the crisis, is 160 thousand people, the report said. One of the authors of the report, Mahiban Maruthadu from Imperial College London, notes that we are talking primarily about such cancer diseases such as breast cancer, prostate and rectum.
The researchers came to the conclusion that the increase in unemployment by 1% leads to additional deaths among cancer patients at the level of 0.37 to a hundred people. Reducing health care costs by 1% increases the mortality rate among cancer patients at the level 0,0053 a hundred people.
The study analyzed data from the world health organization and the world Bank for 75 countries with a total population of over 2 billion people between 1990 and 2010. The subject of analysis was the relationship between the level of unemployment, budget spending on health care and mortality from cancer.
