If Americans stopped seeing certain problems as medical conditions, it might be possible to whittle away some of the more than $2 trillion the country spends annually on healthcare, reports the Florida Times-Union.
Americans spent 4 percent of healthcare dollars--$77 billion in 2005--on all the treatments, pills and procedures they bought to cure their formerly non-medical problems, according to a May report in Social Science and Medicine. The study was the first to pin a number on medicalization, a process where non-medical problems become defined and treated as medical problems.
Medicalization can lead to what Peter Conrad, a sociologist at Brandeis University and lead author of the study, and others call the over-medicalization of certain conditions.
An example of medicalization would be attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Although rarely diagnosed in the 1970s, now 7 percent of children have been labeled as having ADHD. Other examples of conditions that have become "medicalized" are obesity, wrinkles, and even sparse eyelashes.
Annual medical spending tabs that go toward formerly non-medical ills cover many disorders and perceived problems. Here are a few:
- $18.3 billion for normal pregnancy/delivery
- $12.4 billion for cosmetic procedures/surgery
- $10.9 billion for anxiety disorders
- $1.8 billion for sleep disorders
- $1.1 billion for infertility
- $1.1 billion for erectile dysfunction
- $1.1 for male pattern baldness
To learn more:
- read this Florida Times-Union article
- read the abstract from the journal Social Science and Medicine