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Abstract
Recent studies show that food hypersensitivity, such as food allergy or food intolerance, has the potential to affect direct, indirect and intangible
economic costs experienced by individuals and their families. This research assesses the direct and indirect economic costs of food
hypersensitivity at the household level in the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain.A self-administered postal survey was conducted (n=1558). Respondents with food hypersensitivity were clinically diagnosed cases recruited
through clinical centres in Poland and Spain. In the Netherlands, food hypersensitivity cases were recruited through hospitals, patient organisations
and advertisements. The controls formed the baseline sample and were obtained from households in which none of the members
had food hypersensitivity. The monetary value of indirect costs, forgone time, was calculated using the opportunity cost method. The indirect
and direct costs were expressed in purchasing power parity. Analysis of co-variance on the cost items was used to test the within-country differences
between respondents with food hypersensitivity and respondents without food hypersensitivity, as well as across the three countries.The average total direct and indirect costs across all countries for families with food hypersensitive family members are not higher than for
households without food hypersensitive members. However, the intangible costs for food hypersensitive individuals appear to be higher than
for individuals in the control group.These results do not support the hypothesis that all food allergies incur high costs to the individual. However, being hypersensitive to foods
may have a negative impact on quality of life compared to people who are not food hypersensitive.