2007 Volume 11 Issue 1 Pages 73-78
Cedar pollinosis is one of the most common illnesses in Japan. It is known that the medical care seeking by patients with severe symptoms depends on the scatter of pollen, of which production is accelerated by the warmth of the previous summer. It is also known that high prevalence, 10% to 20% of the nation, results in a considerable amount of health care expenditure. This study aims to illustrate an impact of climate change by quantifying the health care budget impact of cedar pollinosis under global warming with scenarios of 1°C to 5°C warming ceteris paribus through combining the available knowledge in the literature. The estimated budget impact, 4,343 million yen with 1°C warming, 9,019 million yen with 2°C, 13,031 million yen with 3°C, 17,372 million yen with 4°C and 21,717 million yen with 5°C, is approximately 0.016% to 0.070% of the national health care budget of the late 1990s. It is suggested that the climate change in a form of global warming causes a financial burden on the government or the society, threatening the sustainability of social insurance based health system, or public finance. Our estimation depends on a number of assumptions such that “with other things being the same”. Despite of these limitations, we conclude that the government needs to pay attention to the health care budget impact of cedar pollinosis and consider actions and priorities that adapt to global warming.
