Economic Cost of Arthritis

Forty-six million Americans are currently living with arthritis, the nation’s leading cause of disability, and we are all paying a high price for it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the annual cost of arthritis to the United States economy was $128 billion in 2003 and increased by $20 billion between 1997 and 2010.

Osteoarthritis
•        Osteoarthritis affects an estimated 21 million Americans, mostly after age 45

•        Women are more commonly affected than men

•        OA is responsible for more than 7 million physician visits per year

•        Eighty percent of people with OA report some form of limitation in movement or activities

•        Knee OA can be as disabling as any cardiovascular disease except stroke

•        As many as half the people who have OA do not know what type of arthritis they have and cannot make informed decisions about their care because treatment options vary among the more than 100 forms of arthritis

Rheumatoid
•        Rheumatoid arthritis affects 2.1 million Americans, mostly women

•        Onset is usually in middle-age, but often occurs in the 20s and 30s

•        1.5 million women have rheumatoid arthritis compared to 600,000 men