International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences | September 2015 | Vol 3 | Issue 9 Page 2376 International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences Thakare BS et al. Int J Res Med Sci. 2015 Sep;3(9):2376-2381 www.msjonline.org pISSN 2320-6071 | eISSN 2320-6012 Research Article Economic burden of hypertension care on households of Malwani slum of Mumbai: a cross-sectional study Bharat S. Thakare 1 *, Ambadas Adhav 1 , Suhas Kadam 2 INTRODUCTION Developing countries like India have witnessed double burden of diseases since past few decades. The burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD) is increasing while communicable diseases (CD) like HIV, Malaria and diseases related to Nutrition are still not under control. 1,2 NCD constitute more than 60% of deaths globally. Out of this, Cardio Vascular Diseases (CVD) i.e. Ischemic Heart Diseases and Stroke constitutes around 50% of deaths. 3 CVD are now proved to be the most common causes of deaths and disabilities worldwide. 4 Even in Indian Subcontinent, the rates of CVDs are on higher side. 1 Among CVDs, Hypertension (HT) is a major contributory factor with subsequent morbidity and mortality. It is the only modifiable risk factor for CVD. 5 World Health Report 2002 identified hypertension as a 3rd ranked factor for Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). 5,6 Developing Countries like India and China are facing the increasing burden of hypertension as consequences of ageing population and rapidly increasing ABSTRACT Background: Hypertension is a chronic non-communicable disease that effects adversely on heart, brain and kidney. Nearly 2/3rd of all hypertensive patients live in low and middle income countries, so the economic burden of hypertension is huge. India is one of those countries which spent more than 1/3 rd of all income on CVD and hypertension. This study was conceptualized to study the disease and economic burden of hypertension. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in New Collector Compound (NCC) of Malwani. Five plots of NCC were selected by simple random sampling. A list of hypertensive patients was prepared by house-to-house survey. Fifty per cent patients were selected randomly for studying economic burden. Results: The study covered 447 households and 2360 persons. Eighty participants (3.4%) were found hypertensive. The average annual total cost of hypertension and related disorders was Rs. 7154. It was Rs. 6073 and Rs. 8235 for government and private respectively. Only 7.50% households were not incurring any cost of illness. The average annual out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) was Rs. 4042 and Rs. 7621 for government and private facilities respectively. Fifteen per cent households were incurring catastrophic expenditure at highest threshold of 40%. The catastrophic spending led to impoverishment of 34.2% households. Conclusions: High prevalence of hypertension, high OOPE, high incidence of catastrophic spending and impoverishment among households intensively reflect the need of interventions. Early preventive measures may be a key in controlling economic and disease burden. There is need to provide the financial risk protection against the OOPE for outpatient care. Keywords: Economic burden, Out of pocket expenditure, Hypertension, Malwani Slum, Mumbai, Non Communicable Diseases 1 Research officer & Project Manager, MAHAN Trust, Melghat, Maharashtra, India 2 Consultant, Research and Documentation, State Health Systems Resource Centre, Maharashtra, India Received: 25 July 2015 Accepted: 11 August 2015 *Correspondence: Bharat S. Thakare, E-mail: bharat.thakare9206@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20150634