Abstract
The national expenditures for countermeasures against major causes of mortality and their effectiveness are not unraveled. In this study, we evaluated relationship between the mortality by major causes and their national expenditures for countermeasures, and then provided information to decide whether their expenditures for countermeasures meet persons' willingness to pay. Whereas the number of deaths by most major causes has been increasing, their age-adjusted mortality rates and age specific (≤64 years old and ≥65 years old) mortality rates showed decreased trends, suggesting that their expenditures for countermeasures have been effective. There were several orders of magnitude differences in expenditures for countermeasures among causes of mortality despite the similar number of deaths. The causes of mortality with high expenditures for countermeasures (e.g. traffic accident and malignant neoplasm) showed large reduction of mortality rates. The expenditures for countermeasures against traffic accident, malignant neoplasm, cardiocirculatory disease and fire disaster were comparable to or lower than the persons' willingness to pay for the risk reduction.
