Prototyping a Methodology for Estimating the Economic Externalities Resulting From Commercial Products’ Influence on the Health of Their Users

Purpose Determine feasibility of estimating economic externalities associated with influences that products of individual corporations have on their customers’ health behaviors. Design Our methodology included four steps: (1) model influence of company product(s) on user behavior at the population level; (2) calculate relative risks of developing selected diseases/conditions associated with product use; (3) estimate the number of cases of selected disease/conditions that could be attributed to the company’s influence; and (4) summarize annual cost of attributable cases. Setting United States. Sample Three companies: Burger King, Netflix and Niantic Labs. Measures Annual US healthcare costs associated with the use of commercial products and services by adults. Analysis We estimated costs and benefits (costs avoided) by linking product use and population exposure with relative risks of major chronic conditions, as established in dose-response meta-analysis studies, to calculate population attributable fractions and then linking potentially attributable cases to annual healthcare costs. Results Annual cost potentially attributable to Burger King was $4.9 billion and Netflix $32.4 billion; annual benefit attributable to Niantic Labs was $322 million. Conclusion We demonstrated a methodology for estimating economic externalities that could be associated with the use of different commercial products/services.