The costs of cardiorespiratory disease episodes in a study of emergency department use

The first point of contact for individuals with urgent health problems is o ften the emergency department (ED). We recently completed a study of ED use due to cardiorespiratory conditions as part of a larger study on the healt h effects of air quality(1) which was motivated by the recent public health concerns over this issue.(2-6) Several studies have documented an associat ion between air quality and ED visits for respiratory diseases.(7-16) Thus the emergency department served as a useful reference point from which to c apture the potential health costs of cardiorespiratory disease episodes. In this paper, we describe the cost methodology used to estimate the average per person direct cost of illness for four cardiorespiratory conditions and discuss the results.