Objective: To identify, and if necessary develop, a descriptive framework defining a nomenclature system for the relevant components and methods when identifying and quantifying the economic impact of disease.

Methods: The traditional pearl-growing method was used to identify relevant review articles describing methods to quantify economic impact (cost of illness (COI)/burden of disease). This search was supplemented with targeted searches of the grey literature using keyword-based searches of publically available relevant websites (e.g. World Health Organization) and hand-searching of textbooks relevant to health economics and economics of healthcare. Only literature published between 2000 to 2019 were included.

Results: Neither an explicit definition of economic impact nor an existing descriptive framework were identified. Previous reviews aiming to assimilate values of economic burden of disease acknowledged the lack of a clear definition but none developed a descriptive framework to provide the basis for understanding published estimates from studies reporting the economic impact of disease. Identified studies, documents and book chapters were collectively used to create a descriptive framework that describes the relevant components needed to identify, measure and value the economic impact of disease. The framework provides definitions of CoI and burden (consequences) of disease together with potential methods available to identify, measure and value the economic impact of disease taking into account welfarist and extra-welfarist approaches. The framework specifies the need to be clear about the quantity of interest and the relevant perspective (patient, healthcare, and society) for defining economic impact of disease.

Conclusion: This study has produced a framework to enable the design and reporting of studies that identify, measure and value the economic impact of disease. This is the first necessary step towards improving consistency and coherence in understanding published estimates of CoI and burden of disease.