The average annual health care costs (medical and prescription) are more than 3x higher for people with endometriosis compared with people without, even 5 years before and 5 years after diagnosis.
The total workplace productivity loss averages 11 hours per week, with the majority of that loss caused by presenteeism.
The EndoCost Quality of Life Study demonstrated the long-term impact on work, relationships, and the sex-lives of people with endometriosis.
Despite its high prevalence and cost, endometriosis remains underfunded and -researched, greatly limiting our understanding of the disease and slowing much-needed innovation in diagnostic and treatment options.
Endometriosis also affects people during the prime years of their lives, a time when they should be finishing education, starting and maintaining a career, building relationships and perhaps have a family. For these people to have their productivity affected, their HRQoL compromised and their chances for starting a family reduced, is something society can no longer afford to ignore.
It is time we see serious investment in preventing this debilitating condition in the next generation, even though we do not know the risk of developing endometriosis in the general population,
nor the prognosis of severity/progression (disease aggression).