OBJECTIVES: To estimate the burden of disease of heart failure (HF) in Colombia.

METHODS: We estimated disability-adjusted life years (DALY) and costs. Initially, we performed an epidemiological estimation of cases and mortality based on local data and published literature. We quantified patients with HF in each ejection fraction (EF) stage, and afterwards, estimated the DALYs. For years lost to disability (YLD), we mapped disutility states to EF stages. For years of life lost (YLL) to premature death, we estimated deaths by age and age group, and their life expectancy according to Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. For costs, we considered direct and other costs. For the former, we estimated annual costs using base case with experts and local tariff manuals. For the latter, we considered productivity lost to disease morbidity, productivity lost to premature death and out of pocket expense. (2020, 1 USD = $3,693.36 COP)

RESULTS: We estimated a total of 490,831 total HF cases, with 27,437 deaths. Based on these data, we estimated 87,180 YLD and 453,228 YLL, for a total of 480,289 DALY. YLL constituted 97% of DALY. We estimated that 56% of all DALY were attributed to males. When considering the Colombian population, HF would produce 953.5 DALY per 100,000. We estimated a total cost of 1.2 billion USD for HF. Around 741 million USD were direct costs (61%), 467 million USD lost productivity (38.4%) and 7 million USD out of pocket expense (0.6%).

CONCLUSIONS: Our estimation represents 4% of all DALY and 36% of cardiovascular disease DALY estimated for Colombia in the GBD study. Most of it was attributed to YLL. Direct costs were the main drivers of estimated costs, followed by lost productivity costs.