Projecting the Health and Economic Burden of Cardiovascular Disease Among People with Type 2 Diabetes, 2022–2031

Objective The aim was to project the health and economic outcomes of cardiovascular disease (CVD) among people with type 2 diabetes from Australian public healthcare and societal perspectives over the next decade. Methods A dynamic multistate model with yearly cycles was developed to project cardiovascular events among Australians with type 2 diabetes aged 40–89 years from 2022 to 2031. CVD risk (myocardial infarction [MI] and stroke) in the type 2 diabetes population was estimated using the 2013 pooled cohort equation, and recurrent cardiovascular event rates in the type 2 diabetes with established CVD population were obtained from the global Reduction of Atherothrombosis for Continued Health (REACH) registry. Costs and utilities were derived from published sources. Outcomes included fatal and non-fatal MI and stroke, years of life lived, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), total healthcare costs, and total productivity losses. The annual discount rate was 5%, applied to outcomes and costs. Results Between 2022 and 2031, a total of 83,618 non-fatal MIs (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 83,170–84,053) and 58,774 non-fatal strokes (95% UI 58,458–59,013) were projected. Total years of life lived and QALYs (discounted) were projected to be 9,549,487 (95% UI 9,416,423–9,654,043) and 6,632,897 (95% UI 5,065,606–7,591,679), respectively. Total healthcare costs and total lost productivity costs (discounted) were projected to be 9.59 billion Australian dollars (AU$) (95% UI 1.90–30.45 billion) and AU$9.07 billion (95% UI 663.53 million–33.19 billion), respectively. Conclusions CVD in people with type 2 diabetes will substantially impact the Australian healthcare system and society over the next decade. Future work to investigate different strategies to optimize the control of risk factors for the prevention and treatment of CVD in type 2 diabetes in Australia is warranted.