New Report Shows Costs Associated With Osteoporosis Care Increase by 118%

With costs associated with osteoporosis totaling $73.6 billion from 2012 to 2014—a 118% increase from 1998 to 2000—the United States Bone and Joint Initiative (USBJI) has determined that osteoporosis remains a costly condition among older US adults. The findings also show an 11.0% prevalence rate of the condition among US adults aged 50 or older.

The USBJI report findings—which focused on the prevalence of, fractures associated with, health care utilization for, and economic burden of osteoporosis—were presented at the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2019 Annual Meeting.

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To evaluate the current prevalence of osteoporosis, Nicole Wright, PhD, MPH, from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues reviewed studies that provided prevalence estimates based on bone mineral density (BMD).

The researchers analyzed the prevalence of major fragility fractures and the assessment of temporal trends in these fractures using the 2010 to 2014 National (Nationwide) Inpatient Sample (NIS) and the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample. The NIS data were also used to evaluate health care utilization. Finally, the economic burden of osteoporosis care was estimated using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey.

Based on recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data, the overall prevalence of osteoporosis—using femoral neck and lumbar spine BMD—in US adults aged 50 or older was 11.0%.

Osteoporosis prevalence was higher among women (16.5%) than among men (5.1%). The condition also had the highest prevalence among Asians, followed by Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites, and non-Hispanic blacks.

Other findings from the report included the following:

• From 2012 to 2014, the total aggregate direct costs for individuals with osteoporosis was $73.6 billion, which was a 118% increase from 1998 to 2000 when costs totaled $28.1 billion.
• The NIS data indicated that 2.8% of the 19.5 million discharges and 0.9% of the 46.7 million emergency department visits were attributed to fragility fractures.
• Women aged 80 years or older and non-Hispanic whites had the highest prevalence of fractures at all fracture sites.
• While there was a decrease in all fracture sites from 2010 to 2014, there was a 3.5% increase in the number of hip fracture discharges and a 1.4% increase in femur fracture discharges during the same period.
• The mean hospital length of stay for patients with fragility fractures was 5.3 days. Patients with femur fractures had the longest length of stay (6.1 days), while patients with wrist fractures had the shortest length of stay (3.6 days).
• Patients were more likely to have a longer length of stay if they were men, younger, and non-Hispanic black.

“These new prevalence estimates seek to increase osteoporosis awareness and prevention,” the researchers concluded.

—Colleen Murphy

Reference:

Wright N, Saag K, King T, Watkins-Castillo S, Yelin E, Hochberg M. The burden of osteoporosis in the United States — a US Bone and Joint Initiative report [Abstract #1079]. Presented at: American Society for Bone and Mineral Research 2019 Annual Meeting; September 22, 2019; Orlando, FL.